The next day, sunlight filtered green and lush through the leaves, and wisteria blossoms swayed, filling the whole garden.
It was the Ubuyashiki Mansion again, and again the space before the main hall.
The fragrance of the blossoms drifted in from the courtyard, so thick it seemed almost solid, weighing down the air.
The shoji doors had been drawn open on both sides, and inside the hall, people were already seated.
Seven of them.
Seven Hashira.
They knelt in order along both sides of the main hall, facing the center, spines straight.
None of the later-era titles tied to Breathing Styles — Flame Hashira, Water Hashira, and the like — existed yet. The Demon Slayer Corps of this era had no Breathing Style, and so naturally had no Hashira names divided along those lines.
They were simply Corps swordsmen of Hashira rank.
They were the seven strongest swordsmen in the Demon Slayer Corps, each guarding their own territory — the mightiest force the Ubuyashiki family had that could meet vengeful Demons head-on.
Without the boost of a Breathing Style, these swordsmen had reached their position through pure swordsmanship, physical talent, and battle experience — and the Sun Blade.
Against vengeful Demons, they usually moved in squads — at least three swordsmen, and more often seven or eight — coordinating with one another, laying traps of every kind, to surround and kill a single vengeful Demon, making up through tactics for the gap in individual strength.
In this generation, at most one or two Hashira could kill a Demon single-handedly — and most of the time, there were none at all.
The rest were simply commanders with a talent for leading squads into the kill.
Even so, they remained the closest thing humanity had to its limits.
Elite samurai swordsmen, and occasionally, a swordmaster of true renown.
Against such undying monsters, nothing less than elite skill could have brought them this far.
Among them, the bald, burly man sat first on the left side, still bare-chested, his scar-covered torso gleaming under the lamplight.
Several paces away sat the braided girl who had been polishing her blade, a deep purple haori draped over her shoulders, her braid hanging down her back, a smile on her face.
The remaining five each had their own look — old and young, men and women — but every one of them carried the same thing.
Killing intent.
The heavy, weighted killing intent that could only be forged through years steeped in blood and death.
Ubuyashiki Rikiya, lord of the Demon Slayer Corps, sat at the head of the hall.
He wore the same plain white kariginu as before, half his face covered in purple corrosion, his clouded eyes glinting ash-gray in the lamplight.
Beside him knelt two white-haired attendants, twins identical in face, each holding a tray.
"My thanks for your trouble, everyone."
Rikiya's voice was not loud, yet it carried clearly to every corner of the hall.
It was calm and unhurried, like the resonant tolling of a temple bell, carrying a power that settled the heart.
This, too, was one of the gifts passed down through generations of the Ubuyashiki family.
The leadership gift that let one so sickly and frail command swordsmen who killed Demons for a living.
"I've called you all back because a lead has come in concerning Kibutsuji Muzan."
The mood in the hall shifted at once.
All seven Hashira stiffened at the same instant.
The bald man's hand drifted to the hilt of the blade beside his knee.
Given so natural a reaction, Rikiya paused a moment before continuing. "The source of the lead is a yokai."
Silence.
A brief one.
Then the bald man spoke first, his voice rough and blunt.
"Did you say — a yokai, my lord?"
"An oni warrior calling himself Kobe Hikaru, carrying Master Totosai's written notes, sought out Jinjuro's squad of his own accord."
"An oni warrior."
The braided girl's voice seemed to sway, soft and light, yet carried a crisp clarity to it. "Isn't that just a Demon, then?"
"It's a yokai, not a Demon born of Muzan."
Rikiya corrected her. "You should all know the difference between the two."
On that point, there was no real dispute.
Yokai and vengeful Demons were fundamentally different creatures. A yokai was a non-human being condensed from foul aura, while a vengeful Demon was a human mutated after infection by Muzan's blood.
The former came in a thousand forms with a thousand origins; the latter all traced back to a single root.
The swordsmen of the Demon Slayer Corps hated the Demons Kibutsuji Muzan created, because those Demons lived by devouring people — an opposition built into their very natures.
Yokai might kill too, but not consistently, and never out of necessity.
Between the two, there was no undying, mortal hatred.
"Besides that, there's one more person."
Rikiya's pale eyes narrowed.
"One who... may be a swordsman the likes of which this era has never seen."
He described the scene Rengoku Jinjuro had written of in his letter — the red-haired young man who, in a single instant, had overwhelmed three swordsmen with unprecedented force, Jinjuro himself included.
The hall fell silent again.
Longer this time.
"He's bluffing," the bald man said, sucking his teeth.
He knew Rengoku Jinjuro's strength well. The man wasn't a Hashira yet, but it was only a matter of time — he simply lacked seniority and accomplishments. In raw strength, he was second to none of the Hashira present.
— The fellow looked like he'd aged in a hurry, but he was actually still young, barely into his twenties.
Without question, one of the most elite swordsmen in the entire Corps.
A man like that, overwhelmed in an instant, along with the men under him?
If it had been the yokai, fine — yokai always had their share of unusually dangerous ones. But a human? Could there really be a human like that in this world?
"Jinjuro doesn't lie," Rikiya answered calmly.
The bald man fell quiet.
It was true — Rengoku Jinjuro never lied.
"That yokai — this Kobe Hikaru fellow — said—"
Rikiya's voice dropped lower. "He knows where Kibutsuji Muzan is, and he knows how to kill him."
This time, the silence stretched longest of all.
The braided girl pressed her red lips together.
The oldest Hashira present — an elder with graying hair and beard — spoke up abruptly, shaking his head. "My lord, forgive my bluntness, but how can we trust the word of a yokai?"
"Exactly."
The bald man chimed in. "What if it's one of Muzan's traps? It's not as if yokai and Demons can't conspire together—"
But his words trailed off, unfinished.
In that second. In that instant.
A wind swept in suddenly from beyond the courtyard, and on it rode a voice — flat, yet perfectly clear.
"If I meant to deal with all of you, what need would I have for a trap?"
"!?"
Everyone startled, spinning around and gripping their blades, following the sound with their eyes.
Every gaze shot toward the entrance of the main hall.
The voice had come from outside the door — but by the next second, it was already inside the hall.
Gray robes. Pale, long hair. Blood-red demon eyes.
No one had seen him come in.
No one had sensed when he passed through the wisteria barrier, through the corridor, through the door.
He simply appeared.
As though he'd been standing there all along.
All seven Hashira drew their blades at once — steel flashed under the lamplight for an instant — but every motion froze halfway.
Because in the next moment, they found their own bodies refusing to obey.
It was fear, and more than fear — instinct, the paralysis of prey before a natural predator.
Yokai aura at the level of the Nine Mutations — no, far beyond ordinary Nine Mutations, surpassing even an ordinary Ten Mutations yokai — released and withdrawn in a single instant, had already pressed down on every body in the hall.
"Your wisteria only works on vengeful Demons."
Kobe Hikaru stood fixed at the center of the hall, his blood-red demon eyes sweeping over the Hashira on either side. "Useless against yokai."
Rikiya didn't move.
He'd seen something — or rather, sensed something.
"Please, sit."
Rikiya said.
The bald man's eyes went wide. "My lord—"
"Sit down."
Rikiya's voice was no louder than before, yet from that frail body it now carried an immense weight, pressing the seven Hashira's half-drawn blades back into their sheaths.
The power within that voice had taken hold once more.
However unwilling they were, they obeyed.
Ubuyashiki Rikiya then turned to face the yokai before him, a smile forming. "The Demon God, Mitama-no-Mikoto of Musashi Province — Lord Kobe Hikaru, correct?"
As the leader behind the Demon Slayer Corps, whose swordsmen hunted Demons across the land and whose reach spanned nearly all of Japan, there was no way he hadn't heard the name Kobe Hikaru.
But unlike him, the other Corps members showed none of that same recognition. Whatever god of whatever ritsuryo province this was meant nothing to them — they cared only about the Demon.
Kobe Hikaru didn't answer right away.
He stood where he was, drew Totosai's cloth fragment from within his robe, and tossed it onto the floor before Rikiya.
Then he spoke.
"Kibutsuji Muzan is currently in the capital."
"He's hiding within the territory of a great yokai called Hagoromo-Gitsune — likely using her yokai aura to mask his movements while he does... something."
"Sunlight is his only weakness. A Sun Blade can sever his immortality, but he has five brains and seven hearts — ordinary methods won't finish him. Every vital point has to be destroyed in the same instant."
The information poured out.
Clean. Precise. Not a word wasted.
Everyone in the hall froze.
Not because of the information itself — though the fact that he knew details like the five brains and seven hearts, details even the Corps hadn't fully confirmed, was shocking enough — but because of the tone in which this yokai delivered it.
Without a flicker of hesitation. Without a shred of doubt.
It didn't sound like gathered intelligence at all. It sounded like something he'd seen with his own eyes.
Rikiya's right eye narrowed slowly.
"What is it you want, in telling us this? And to what degree do you expect us to act?"
"A Sun Blade."
Kobe Hikaru was direct. "I'll give you the full plan — how to force him into sunlight.
"And all I ask for is a Sun Blade."
He paused, then added one more thing.
"Besides that."
He turned his head, looking toward the corridor beyond the hall.
There, Tsugikuni Yoriichi stood in the corridor, his wife in his arms, red hair stirring faintly in the night wind.
"This man is a hundred times stronger than all your Hashira combined."
"Let him join the Demon Slayer Corps."
"His wife and child will be settled here at your headquarters, under your protection."
"In exchange—"
He looked back to Rikiya. "He'll become the blade in your hands that can truly kill Muzan."
Rikiya lifted his face. Though his eyes had long since gone blind, he seemed to be straining to see.
To see the figure the man described — one whose strength defied belief.
And it seemed he truly could sense it.
He nodded and agreed, then asked, "And you, my lord — what of yourself?"
"I'm a yokai. I won't be joining the Demon Slayer Corps."
Kobe Hikaru lowered his crimson demon eyes. "I have my own matters to attend to."
"But I'll be staying nearby for the next few days. When it comes to Muzan — I'll be there without fail.
"After all, I have a score of my own to settle with him.
"So this isn't entirely a bargain."
An oni mask coalesced over his face, blood-red demon eyes glinting faintly through its seams.
"Call it a notice, instead."
"When the time comes, I'll be there to help you kill Muzan."
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