The moment Giyu and Tanjiro left the Narita Airport behind, the cold wind shifted. Sakura remained at the gate, her small hand lifted in a soft wave as she whispered a hopeful wish, "Come back alive, big brother..."
Tanjiro smiled back at her one last time. Then he turned, his expression sharpening with resolve.
Giyu walked beside him, silent, his dark blue eyes fixed straight ahead. His presence felt different now. Heavy. Worn. Marked by centuries of survival.
They crossed through abandoned highways and collapsed express routes. Moss and rust had taken over everything. Yet the night itself felt strangely awake. Moved. Listening.
Tanjiro paused.
"Giyu... the scent is shifting."
Giyu nodded. "We're close. This one... has been waiting."
A faint pulse crawled across the air. Like a heartbeat stitched from shadows.
Tanjiro's grip tightened on his sword. "Lower Moon One... Enmu."
Giyu's jaw tensed. "He's no longer like the one you fought. Muzan rebuilt him. Twisted him. Let him feed on hundreds of humans each century. He kept evolving. His blood... is closer to an Upper Moon now."
Tanjiro inhaled sharply.
"That scent... it feels like a thousand nightmares mixed together."
Giyu did not answer, only walked forward, his footsteps cautious but steady.
They arrived at a shattered railway line that led toward what remained of Tokyo Station. The ruined buildings curved unnaturally inward, as if something had melted them from inside their dreams.
Black mist pooled around the broken tracks.
Tanjiro lowered himself, touched the ground, and murmured, "This isn't normal demon miasma... someone is distorting the surroundings."
Giyu took a slow breath. "We're entering his territory. Do not fall asleep no matter what happens."
Tanjiro nodded. "I won't."
But before either of them could take the next step, the shadows rippled.
And a distorted voice echoed from everywhere at once:
"Welcome back... Tanjiro Kamado."
Tanjiro's eyes widened.
Giyu unsheathed his sword instantly.
A massive, worm-like figure erupted from the side of a derailed train. Its flesh was made of swirling sheets of faces — each frozen in an expression of terror. Its head, stretched and elongated, had Enmu's signature stitched smile, but far more grotesque. Its lower body was a giant centipede of dream-flesh, hundreds of hands gripping the ground to pull it forward.
And from its back grew tendrils shaped like clocks, melting and reforming as if time itself was losing shape.
Enmu's voice echoed, layered with dozens of tones:
"One hundred years... I spent dreaming of this moment!"
Tanjiro stepped forward, eyes blazing.
"Enmu! I ended you once. I'll end you again!"
Enmu giggled, the sound vibrating like glass breaking.
"But last time... I did not have Muzan's blessing."
Suddenly the world flickered.
And Tanjiro found himself standing inside a field of snow.
His breath caught.
The smell—
The sky—
The warmth of the house behind him—
"No..." Tanjiro whispered, shaking.
This was his home.
His family's home.
He heard soft footsteps.
"Big brother?"
Tanjiro's entire body trembled. He turned.
Nezuko, human again, stood there smiling. Behind her were his mother and siblings, alive, whole, happy.
The illusion was perfect.
Too perfect.
Giyu's voice echoed distantly, "Tanjiro! Wake up!"
Tanjiro gritted his teeth.
"This... isn't real."
But his mother stepped forward, her smile kind.
"We missed you, Tanjiro."
His siblings ran toward him.
Nezuko's hand reached up in a gentle gesture.
Tanjiro shut his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
He swung his sword in a clean arc.
In an instant the world shattered like glass. The snowy field dissolved into a vortex of screams.
Tanjiro's roar echoed from his soul.
"YOU CAN'T MANIPULATE MY HEART ANYMORE!"
Enmu's true form screeched, recoiling violently.
Giyu, now back at Tanjiro's side, said quietly, "Well done. Most people would have fallen forever."
Tanjiro took a deep breath, then set his stance.
"Let's finish this."
Enmu lunged, his centipede body coiling, and unleashed a tornado of nightmare tendrils shaped like blades.
Giyu moved first.
"Water Breathing, Eleventh Form... Dead Calm."
The tendrils sliced toward him, but his blade erased every ripple of energy, carving a quiet space in reality.
Tanjiro dashed through that opening.
"Breath of the Sun God... First Form!"
His flame slash collided with Enmu's head, burning the flesh and sending him skidding backward.
But the demon laughed through the smoke.
"Do you know how many times I've died, Tanjiro? Muzan rebuilt me again and again. Each time I learned to resist your flames. Each time I grew stronger!"
Its melting clock-tendrils spiraled outward, dragging the surroundings into a dreamlike distortion.
Tanjiro felt his vision doubling.
Giyu muttered, "He's mixing dream energy with reality. Stay close to me."
Enmu roared and summoned a massive illusionary wave of flesh that came crashing toward them.
Tanjiro answered with a strike that split the ground.
"Breath of the Sun God... Seventh Form: Solar Purification!"
A pillar of fire erupted, evaporating the entire illusion.
Enmu screamed as the flames scorched his real body hidden beneath.
Giyu seized the moment and leapt.
"Water Breathing, Third Form... Flowing Dance!"
He dodged Enmu's claws and aimed for the neck.
But Enmu's body twisted unnaturally, splitting into five serpent-like heads with open jaws.
Tanjiro reached out.
"Giyu san!"
Giyu deflected one head but another slammed him into a wall.
Blood splattered.
Tanjiro's eyes widened with rage.
Enmu laughed through all five mouths.
"He is nothing compared to me now! As for you... I've mastered your memories. I will create nightmares you cannot escape."
Tanjiro's grip tightened.
"I've lived through nightmares you can't imagine."
He inhaled deeply.
And flames erupted around him, swirling upward like a sun rising at night.
Giyu looked up in awe.
"That technique..."
Tanjiro leapt high and poured all of his soul into one strike.
"Breath of the Sun God... Ninth Form: Solar Cataclysm!"
The sky split open in a torrent of blazing light.
Enmu shrieked as the flames tore through his monstrous body, burning every nightmare fragment, every illusion organ, every face in his flesh.
His final scream echoed like a collapsing dream.
"MUZAN SAMA... HELP ME...!!"
The flame pillar consumed him.
And Enmu vanished fully —
for the second, and final, time.
The ruins fell silent.
Tanjiro landed slowly, breathing hard but steady.
Giyu approached him, wiping blood from his lip.
"You've become something unimaginable, Tanjiro."
Tanjiro sheathed his sword.
"There's no time to rest. If Lower Moon One was this strong after a century... Muzan's army must be far worse."
Giyu nodded.
"We go to the next target."
Tanjiro looked toward the direction of the rising dawn.
"Sakura... everyone at the airport... I'll keep my promise."
He turned to Giyu with a determined smile.
"Let's end Muzan this time."
And with that, the two warriors stepped forward, heading deeper into a world shaped by demons, but waiting for hope.
Their next hunt had already begun.