In this final battle that would decide everything, there was nothing extra for demons and demon slayers to say. In the end, it all came down to a fight to the death.
…
"What's wrong, what's wrong—so this is all an Upper Rank amounts to? You're only a Four after all!"
The one shouting as he fought was Inosuke. Sanemi Shinazugawa glanced at him with a strange look.
He couldn't shake the feeling that this kid's character settings overlapped with his own. Wasn't running his mouth mid-battle supposed to be his thing?
Still, having room for such thoughts in the middle of a fight was proof enough of how relaxed he was.
Upper Rank Four, Hantengu, had a Blood Demon Art of division.
He could split off avatars with different abilities, each with a character for an emotion on its tongue.
Every split body had an independent consciousness, so a single demon, Hantengu, was essentially equivalent to multiple Upper Ranks worth of combat power. The key was that killing these avatars did not affect Hantengu's true body.
Now four bodies—Urogi, Sekido, Aizetsu, and Karaku—had been split off and were entangled with the four slayers.
Awkwardly, all four demons were being suppressed.
Sanemi and Shinobu Kocho felt odd as well.
In past battles with demons, even weak ones might wield Blood Demon Arts that threatened their lives, which had forced them to stay on hair-trigger alert.
They were fragile humans with no extra lives to spend.
But this time, even before the fight began, they already had enough experience banked; they even felt this intensity lagged far behind training.
No surprise there. To get everyone acclimated to battle, Charles had trained them against every enemy he remembered—dialed up a notch.
So of course they felt this way, to the point they were a little embarrassed about how, before fighting, they'd expected to gamble their lives.
Sanemi slid a step to the side and swept his Nichirin upward from below.
"Wind Breathing: Sixth Form: Black Wind Mountain Mist!"
A tornado-shaped Mark appeared on his face as black wind blades rose, clipping into Aizetsu's thrusting cross-spear and lopping off its smaller branches.
Sanemi was about to press the advantage and behead Aizetsu when Karaku swung his leaf fan to blow Sanemi away.
Just then, Kanao burst in, petal-like markings blooming over her delicate face.
Thanks in part to Tanjiro's emotional breakthrough, Kanao's current strength was firmly Hashira-class.
"Flower Breathing: Sixth Form: Whirling Peach!"
Petals drifted as Kanao carved a lateral slash and severed the arm holding Karaku's fan.
The four "little ones" all had frightening talent. Aside from taste, which was useless in battle, each had one supercharged sense.
Kanao's greatest was her vision; both her observational acuity and dynamic sight far surpassed normal.
She excelled at spotting chances; of course she'd seen the fatal opening Karaku left.
Sekido's brows shot up; he raised his monk's staff to loose a thunderbolt, but a faint, odd sound ticked at his ear.
It was like a tiny latch snapping shut, followed by the rasp of steel sliding from a scabbard.
"My, my! You forgot about me?"
"Insect Breathing: Dance of the Bee Sting: True Flutter!"
Shinobu still wore a smile, but her oddly shaped blade had already lanced into Sekido's throat.
"To use poison—such a despicable tactic. It enrages me!" Sekido rumbled. "But I am an Upper Rank. I'll break down a mere toxin at once!"
Shinobu's smile didn't change, though there was a hint of mockery. "Is that so? Your bodies can indeed decompose most toxins in this world. But what about those from other worlds?"
Working with Tamayo, Shinobu had found that Upper Ranks' ability to metabolize poison far exceeded her expectations.
Especially Doma: even after death, his blood could break down nearly eighty percent of her poisons. Had he been alive, none of her toxins might have killed him.
So instead of joining the sword-training camp, Shinobu had stayed in the lab to strengthen her poisons.
With materials supplied by Charles, she and Tamayo succeeded in formulating several toxins.
A few could corrode Doma's and Gyokko's cells on contact; Tamayo had used those on Muzan.
Shinobu had brought the rest, and she had already injected some into Sekido's body.
Urogi, the flying demon, was the fastest of the four.
Whenever the others were in trouble, he would dive from above to turn the tide.
But midway down, the boar-masked boy sprang up, and two serrated blades punched through Urogi's chest.
"Got you at last, you fluttering pest!"
Urogi thrashed wildly with Inosuke skewered on him, trying to shake him off.
Inosuke just clamped onto the blades buried in his body; when Urogi finally steadied, Inosuke planted a foot on his back, drew both swords, and crossed them at his neck.
"Beast Breathing: Sixth Fang: Jagged Gnawing!"
The twin blades sawed back and forth, carving through Urogi's skin and muscle.
Almost simultaneously, Sanemi and Kanao took Aizetsu's and Karaku's heads; Sekido's body collapsed under the virulent toxin, and Urogi's head flew free.
The four didn't stop. They fanned out to search. Killing the four avatars wasn't enough; to finish Hantengu, they had to behead the main body.
"Found him!"
Sharp-eyed Kanao spotted the target first: a tiny figure cowering under a collapsed beam.
Barely a foot tall, Hantengu's true body squeaked, instantly turned tail, and ran with no intent to fight!
At the same time, the four demon corpses on the floor didn't turn to ash. They still wriggled, moving together.
Charles had warned them: the avatars could devour one another to form a stronger body. It was also possible that even slain avatars could merge.
Hantengu's strongest form, Zohakuten, appeared. Though the body was smaller, Zohakuten's aura surged stronger than before.
He struck the drum on his back emblazoned with the great character for "Hatred," and a swarm of wooden dragons flew forth to block pursuit of the true body.
"Wind Breathing: Seventh Form: Sudden Gusts!"
"Flower Breathing: Second Form: Honorable Shadow Plum!"
"Beast Breathing: Fourth Fang: Slice 'n' Dice!"
All three wheeled and hewed down the onrushing dragons. But these constructs of Blood Demon Art regenerated almost instantly.
Even so, with the three holding the line, Shinobu could chase the true body at ease.
"Insect Breathing: Dance of the Centipede: Hundred-Legged Zigzag!"
It was a form meant to stamp hard and weave at high speed to disorient a foe, but this time Shinobu used it to close the gap.
The craven Hantengu hadn't even turned to see what caused the uproar before her blade pierced his body.
He summoned one last avatar, Hatred, to wrap the true body where the heart would be. But he was too late; Shinobu had already injected the fiercest toxin into the Craven's body.
So Hatred's form rotted as it formed, and Zohakuten's body began to collapse along with it.
…
Yellow and black lightning wove together as Zenitsu and his senior, Kaigaku, flashed and crossed through the room.
The former Thunder Hashira, Jigoro Kuwajima, had two disciples, and neither had learned all the forms of Thunder Breathing.
One learned only the First Form, while the other learned every form but the First.
In the end, the two disciples crossed blades, each bent on killing the other.
Kaigaku ran through Thunder Breathing's Second to Sixth forms one by one, but failed to harm Zenitsu.
Using only the First Form, Thunderclap and Flash, Zenitsu slipped every attack with ease.
That a newly made demon's speed couldn't match the man he'd always looked down on made Kaigaku's face twist ever more grotesque.
Zenitsu's expression stayed cold. His hand settled on his hilt.
"Thinking back, a part of why I endured such grueling training was the dream that, once strong, I could fight at your side.
It's laughable in hindsight. Let me end this with the fruits of that training—a form I created myself."
"Your own form? You?" Kaigaku sneered. "As if—"
"Thunder Breathing: Seventh Form: Flaming Thunder God!"
Before he could finish, Zenitsu—wreathed in lightning, yellow haori shredded—vanished from his sight.
He was too fast; Kaigaku's eyes couldn't even catch the movement.
A dragon of thunder and flame roared past, tearing through Kaigaku's body as Zenitsu appeared beyond him.
"Im…possible…!"
Kaigaku's eyes bulged, and then his head rolled from his neck.
______
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