"Ha! Hard to believe you're poisoned, hard as you're pushing yourself to spout such drivel." Gyutaro dodged his attack, speaking with a face full of mockery.
"Poison?" Kazama Aoi looked at Uzui Tengen with worry. The toxin had already begun to spread across his face.
Uzui roared, "A drop of poison like this isn't enough to make me glamorous collapse!"
Gyutaro looked as though he had heard the world's greatest joke. He hunched over, his shoulders shaking with laughter, his eyes filled with undisguised malice. "Is that so? Let's see how much longer you can glamorously hold on."
Uzui attacked. " Drop dead flamboyantly, right now!"
Gyutaro spoke coldly. "Just with you two?"
"And us!"
It was Inosuke, Zenitsu, and Tanjiro.
Gyutaro turned at the sound, his gaze sweeping over the late arrivals. His lips curled in a sardonic arc. "Oh? Three more brats rushing to their deaths."
Kazama Aoi looked at the demonized Gyutaro, determination flashing in her eyes. "Everyone, listen! You have to decapitate both of them at the same time to kill them!"
Gyutaro paused, then spoke scornfully. "So, you found out? But even knowing it, you can't kill us."
"Inosuke, Zenitsu, you handle Daki. Tengen-san, Tanjiro, and I will take Gyutaro. Separate! We must win!"
Aoi had barely finished speaking before Inosuke was already charging, twin blades raised, howling, "Leave it to me! I'm gonna twist that earthworm woman's head right off!"
Zenitsu followed closely behind, his silhouette transforming into a streak of lightning as he slashed toward Daki.
Kazama Aoi watched them go, reverse-gripping the Nichirin Sword at her waist. "Tengen-san, Tanjiro, let's go!"
Uzui Tengen let out a low chuckle. Even though the poison marks on his face had spread to the corners of his eyes, an indestructible battle spirit still burned within those flamboyant eyes.
Clutching a Nichirin Sword in each hand, the wind of his blades carved through the air, carrying a flamboyant bloodlust. "Just what I wanted! Let this demon witness what a truly flamboyant execution looks like!"
Gyutaro spun violently, his blood sickles sweeping out with a poisonous wind. The blade grazed the edge of Tanjiro's haori, narrowly missing his neck. "Nuisances! All of you, just die!"
Tanjiro's pupils constricted. Using his momentum, he violently twisted his body, barely avoiding the poisonous scent of that sickle wind.
His feet didn't stop moving; he spun seamlessly, swinging his blade. The light of Hinokami Kagura: Clear Blue Sky burst forth like crimson fireflies, aiming directly at Gyutaro's flank, forcing him to draw back his sickles to block.
"Damn it!"
Kazama Aoi followed closely. "Wood Breathing, Fourth Form: Blade of Withered Judgment!"
Gyutaro felt a numbness in his wrists. The blood sickle's offensive was actually halted for half a moment.
His eyes widened in fury, violence churning within them. He violently applied force to his wrists to break free, only to see Uzui Tengen already closing in on him with flamboyant footwork.
Tengen's dual blades danced into a dense net, every slash landing precisely on the blood sickles' weak points.
The dizziness caused by the toxin nearly swallowed him whole, but Uzui gritted his teeth, relying on pure, astonishing willpower to push his offensive to its absolute limit.
Tanjiro seized this fleeting moment. The crimson light of Hinokami Kagura flared up again.
"Hinokami Kagura, Dance!"
The blade lodged in Gyutaro's neck, yet it didn't cause a shred of injury. Tanjiro was violently sent flying back.
Seeing this, Aoi yelled at him, "Tanjiro! Tengen-san and I have this covered! Go help Inosuke's group!"
Tanjiro nodded, turning around to join the other fight.
Kazama Aoi stared at Gyutaro. Looking into his violent eyes, a trace of sadness flashed across her own, but was immediately replaced by determination. "Gyutaro! Drop dead!"
Having taken a fatal blow meant for Uzui Tengen, Aoi felt a searing pain explode from her left shoulder. The tip of the blood sickle had pierced her flesh. The fetid venom was seeping down into her limbs and organs through the wound.
Aoi looked over at Tanjiro and the others. Daki's head had already been severed and was currently in Inosuke's arms, cursing nonstop.
As long as we can just sever Gyutaro's head, it would all be over. But I'm so tired....
Aoi's vision began to lose focus. The searing pain in her shoulder and the paralyzing effect of the venom rushed over her like a tide. The fingers gripping her Nichirin Sword trembled uncontrollably.
She bit her lower lip fiercely, the taste of rust spreading through her mouth, forcing herself to maintain consciousness. No. Not yet. I can't collapse yet. Just a little longer, and this nightmare of the Entertainment District will end.
Steeling herself with her final breath, she unleashed an attack. "Wood Breathing, Second Form: Verdant Leaf Whirl!"
Countless bluish-green blade images like swirling leaves stacked layer upon layer, wrapping around Gyutaro's limbs.
A sense of suffocation spread throughout Gyutaro's body. "This attack... it's poisoned?"
Wisteria flower juice had soaked into her blade.
Aoi forced a pale smile, her vision blurred to the point where she could no longer see Gyutaro's face. "Gyutaro..."
Uzui Tengen and Tanjiro attacked his neck together. Two streaks of blade light embedded themselves from the left and right into Gyutaro's neck. Squelch!
Gyutaro's head rolled onto the ground, his eyes still wide open, the violence and unwillingness inside not yet dissipated.
Simultaneously, Daki's head also rolled down from the roof, the hideous expression on her face frozen in deathly stillness.
Memories from before their demonization exploded in Gyutaro and Ume's minds like a revolving lantern.
"Gyutaro, I'll help you protect Ume!"
"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. Big Sister Aoi is right here."
Both were taken aback.
A trace of faint astonishment flashed in Gyutaro's eyes, immediately drowned by deeper pain.
He opened his mouth, wanting to shout that name. "Aoi..."
The girl in his memory who held his hand overlapped with the swordsman before him, drenched in blood and raising a blade against him. It stung his eyes, causing a wave of sour, aching pain.
He had once sworn to protect his sister—to protect the girl who said she would help him watch over Ume. But in the end, they were forced into becoming demons by this world.
Ume also recalled that afternoon, crouching at the alley's mouth. Big Sister Aoi's hands were warm, ruffling her hair, saying that no one would ever bully them again.
So, those warm days had actually existed.
"Big Sister Aoi."
Kazama Aoi looked at the two of them, a coppery taste welling up in her throat.
So, fate had already written the cruelest script.
Aoi, I'm sorry...
Sorry, sorry. We broke our promise.
Aoi knelt before the two severed heads. Forcing herself to, she lightly curled her lips. "Gyutaro, Ume.... I never thought we would meet again like this...."
"It's all over now. The people who bullied you, the days you suffered... it's all ended. In the next life, live in a place without hunger, without cold, without oppression."
"Atone well for your sins...."
Gyutaro and Ume's heads gradually crumbled into ashes in the air.
Kazama Aoi could no longer support herself. Her body went soft, and she collapsed.
At the very final moment of losing consciousness, she saw Uzui Tengen and Tanjiro running toward her, their faces full of anxiety and worry.