^ Chapter 49 - Eve of Salvation ^
Tanjirō's group were still running at top speed with their sights set on the goal their Kasugai crow was guiding them towards, that being the resting place of their worst enemy. They didn't know when Muzan was going to completely revive, but if they had any hope of bringing an end to his demon hegemony over Japan, they had to reach him before the worst case scenario occurred.
As they were sprinting, vaulting themselves over a gap in the floor, their crow cawed and alerted them to one of the newest updates from the battle going on inside of the Infinity Fortress. As soon as Muichirō and Genya's names were mentioned as the casualties from the conflict with the Upper Moon One demon, Tanjirō and Shinobu were both shaken to their cores. Shinobu managed to keep her composure, but Tanjirō, having gotten close to both of them, lowered his head and started to cry.
"They're all dead. This is reality...calm down, Tanjirō, calm down." he told himself as he wiped the tears away and kept sprinting alongside Shinobu. He glanced at her and she had the same look on her face as he did. They both know something like this could happen, it very nearly happened to her after all. They could only continue with their objective until it's completion.
That's what Muichirō and Genya would have wanted them to do, if they were still alive. Tanjirō just wished he could have had a chance to say goodbye to the two of them before they went.
Shinobu felt a similar way, but thanks to her experience, even though it was certainly not as much as some of the other Hashira, she was able to keep herself composed better than him. Of course she felt sad about their deaths, but like her sister's death, it only made her more determined than ever to finish what needed to be finished. Too many people had died already because of Muzan's tyranny. The bloodshed had to come to a stop now.
Tragically, their wishes to bring their great conflict centuries in the making to a rapid close were for naught. Within the deepest chamber of the Infinity Fortress, their greatest fears were realized. Tamayo couldn't endure for as long as they had hoped.
When the first team of regular Demon Slayer Corps members arrived at the flesh cocoon that held the dark lord, they were told to stand down all too late. Muzan burst through it and flew up high into the air above his temporary holding container, his hair now long and pure white. Littered across his body were also numerous mouths lined with incredibly sharp fangs, and branching across his limbs and around these was a dark-red mass. Looking like he had just stepped out of a vat of blood, he set his gaze on the slayers and showed no mercy by ripping and tearing them apart limb from limb with both his hands and feet. The mouths made quick work of their human flesh as well, shredding and eating it as soon as the teeth made contact.
It was truly a slaughter, and it all happened in the mere blink of an eye. The helpless Ubuyashiki family survivors leading the operation could do nothing to prevent every single member sent there from being cut apart or devoured by the Demon Lord. Not even a lone Kasugai crow that tried to flee the scene was spared from the carnage.
"After living over a thousand years, I'd lost the sense to taste food...but now that I'm starving, it's very delicious…" murmured Muzan with a light chuckle as the mouths across his body used their long, forked tongues to lap up the human blood splattered across his skin. "You're deliberately sending food straight to me...my compliments, Ubuyashiki."
Muzan licked his lips and then held up his right hand, a messy clump of hair sprawled around it. It was Tamayo's head, with just what was just above where her chin used to be left. His thumb was still pierced deep into her left eye socket, and pieces of her blood flesh were falling away little by little.
She had tried with all of her might to resist being absorbed by Muzan, but in the end, it was a futile gamble. Now, with a vicious sneer, Muzan was victoriously holding her head as if it were a prize he had just won.
"How is it, Tamayo? Even the 'turn a demon into a human' medicine you used still had no effect." chortled Muzan, Tamayo's raspy breaths like music to his ears.
"You're...going to fall...into hell…" she wheezed. Muzan's temple throbbed slightly as veins bulged out, the resistance Tamayo still put up to his will getting on his nerves.
"So far, hundreds of humans have said that to me. But it's never happened, I'm sorry to say."
"My...husband...and children...give them back…" Tamayo whispered, tears beginning to come from her one remaining right eye.
"Then die right now. Go to the side of the family you yourself slaughtered."
With a loud bone-snapping noise, he crushed what remained of her head in an instant with his fist. Blood dripped through his fingertips and onto the floor at his feet. Finally he didn't ever have to worry about that nuisance of a woman ever again, she was now a part of his flesh, her DNA mingled with his just like the countless other demons who spited him.
Unbeknownst to him, this act would ignite a fire within a certain demon who had never known such a strong sense of hatred before in his entire life. Consuming him from the inside out, every action he would take from this moment on would be to make that man's life a living nightmare. He swore on it.
As this happened, Muzan unleashed himself upon the barely warned Demon Slayers who weren't able to hear Kiriya's order to retreat in time. Even when they did, they were unable to escape the carnage that had been unleashed upon them. Like a natural disaster of epic proportions, Muzan shredded through their ranks with extreme prejudice. Gallons of blood were spilled in mere moments as the awakened Demon Lord went on a rampage. He was going to personally bring an end to the meaningless struggle that's been a thorn in his side for far too long.
"First, the slayers, then I'll personally capture those Kamado siblings myself and absorb them. Then...I'll truly have become the most perfect being imaginable."
Kiriya was at an utter loss. His skin felt clammy from the sweat dripping off it, and terror gripped his heart so firmly it felt like he was suffocating. Hearing the deaths of his father's, and now his through inheritance, children at the hands of Muzan was like he was getting repeatedly punched in the gut.
It made him numb. He wanted to throw up. Part of him even wanted to give up because of his failures that occurred so soon after taking command.
"I didn't make it in time. It's my fault. I failed to give the right commands. Now a lot of people have lost their lives because of it." he thought to himself as he spiraled deeper and deeper into despair. His hands were shaking and he could barely hear the voices of his sisters reaching out to him. "Everyone strove hard for hundreds of years for this day. And everything we did to defeat Muzan...it's all my fault that it's now-"
"Kiriya-sama!"
A fierce slap by Kanata brought him out of his own head and sent him toppling to the floor, their other sibling Kuina gasping and covering her mouth with a hand. Kiriya was left dazed by the slap, and almost instantly the pain set in that really made him come back to his senses.
"Keep yourself together, Oyakata-sama! Give your next orders now!" Kanata shouted right in his face, the shaken Kiriya cupping his rapidly swelling cheek and staring at her in awe. "The fight isn't over yet!"
A few moments of self deliberation and reflection made the young Ubuyashiki heir realize that the attitude he just had would not do. His father and the men who came before him had all suffered through the same pressure and pain as well. Who or what had given him the right to succumb?
It was not his place to react the way he did, and silently he thanked his sister for bringing him back from the brink. He had momentarily stared into the abyss, and now that he was back, he had a renewed sense of determination to see the wishes of his ancestors through to the end. With one quick glance over the maps assembled before him on his table, he had his orders.
"Keep sending reinforcements to Muzan's location. Have the crows spread more 'eyes' out. He has an incredibly wide attack range, so make sure not to get too close to him." Kiriya said firstly before pausing to wipe some blood away from his lips, the stinging pain in his cheek doing little to dissuade him from carrying out his duty. "Gather the Hashira at once, and all other members. We're going to focus all our manpower on one place immediately."
When his sisters returned to their posts behind him, he thanked them for being there at his side even during that temporary moment of weakness. He was going to need them, more than ever, to help pull him through to the end.
"Revived! Muzan has revived! The Hashira must gather at once! Caww!"
"What?! Muzan revived while we were dawdling around?!" stammered Mitsuri as she leapt to a protruding tatami floor area to avoid being crushed by colliding sections of the Infinity Fortress.
She and Obanai had been stuck in a never-ending game of cat and mouse with Nakime, who's biwa allowed her to control every single aspect of the labyrinth of rooms, halls and structures around them. Countless times they had tried to decapitate her, but every single time they got close, they were denied by the demon shifting the environment around her to allow her to escape.
It was positively infuriating, because even with Mitsuri's enhanced speed and strength on account of fully awakening her demonic heritage, they still hadn't been able to touch her. On top of that they had learned that Muichirō and Genya had both perished to help kill the Upper Moon One demon, which was a huge victory for them. Hearing that, after learning of the other deaths of the Upper Moons, and comparing them to what he and Mitsuri had done, it added to his frustration.
"The Biwa lady's Blood Demon technique, its power isn't exactly the most lethal...but she can drag out this cat-and-mouse game for ages. I can't aim for her head, and neither can Mitsuri. How the hell are we gonna get out of this..."
Tanjirō, Shinobu, Kanao and Inosuke had heard about the news from their crow and already had their weapons drawn, expecting a fight while trying to link up with the other Hashira, before the floors and walls all jittered and rumbled around them. They froze and almost instantly the scenery changed around them.
Doors opened and closed, hallways ran by them at the speed of trains, until eventually their chamber was brought up to connect with another, launching them upward onto the ceiling of a dining room of sorts with tables and chairs beneath them. Being on the ceiling wasn't what caught their attention, because they had seen it plenty of times already while being inside of the Infinity Fortress.
It was the man standing several meters away from them, severed human arm in hand, with his long white hair stained near the tips with blood. Muzan turned towards them and with the slight tilt of his head back, as if to assert his dominance and position over them, he stared deep into their souls with his plum red-colored eyes.
Kanao froze up, as did Inosuke. Encountering the late Upper Moon Two, Dōma, had been a tough ordeal, but to be standing before the very progenitor of demons himself was in a completely different universe. Inosuke still grunted and tried to remain steadfast though, but the trembling in his hands betrayed his emotions.
Kanao's hands were trembling too, but not because she was only afraid. Standing before her was the sole reason behind Dōma's existence, behind the suffering of so many people, as well as the death of Kanae. She was angry, and it was taking everything she had to not explode. It felt as though Kanae herself was there right next to her, a hand on her hand on her back, helping her maintain her composure.
For Inosuke it was nearly the same reason, but instead of Kanae, it was his mother who he hardly knew. Through Muzan, Dōma became the reason why he was made an orphan. He had lost a life that he could have had with her because Muzan created that vile demon. And for that he couldn't even possibly think of ever forgiving him, let alone entertain that very thought.
Even Shinobu, despite being a demon, felt the same kind of emotions well up inside of her. Sure, she had been nervous when confronting her sister's killer, but it was outweighed by her own rage and desire for vengeance that nearly got her killed. The moment of weakness and terror she felt upon seeing the demon lord was then sidelined by her own hatred resurfacing, as well as a strength she had now thanks to being by Tanjirō.
The young man himself was struggling, to say the least. Just seeing Muzan's face alone had gotten his heart to start racing. His eyes were wide open and starting to turn bloodshot along with an increase in the blood flowing through his veins. Flashes of his slaughtered family and the tears of Nezuko after turning into a demon plagued his mind. All of the pain and suffering countless people had been dealt to by Muzan flowed into him. Rui, Amai, all of the redeemable demons who strengthened his belief that they were only misunderstood and taken advantage of by Muzan's malice. They were all swirling around inside of his soul, igniting the flames around it that boiled to the surface in the form of actual flames that flickered off his skin and made his haori flap around lightly.
His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword and he snarled, baring his fangs at the man he despised most in the world. It took the gentle hand of his girlfriend to bring him from the brink of blacking out and going mad with bloodlust. When Tanjirō glanced at Shinobu out of the corner of his eye, he could see the veins bulging out from beneath her skin too. What surprised him was that in a moment's notice, her anger, coupled with the presence of Muzan and the thought that she could have not been here, a change occurred. Along with her already enhanced senses thanks to her newly acquired demon physiology, her vision gained a whole new layer of perception as a butterfly-like mark shaded dark purple came into being on her right cheek, below the earlier purple wisp-like markings she had gotten upon her transformation.
This had to be what Muichirō had talked about during their meeting before the start of Hashira training. She had developed her own Demon Slayer mark, and she knew it had to be thanks to Tanjirō's presence in some way.
Muzan glared right back at him and to see his Upper Moon's markings still on the eyes of the one traitor he ever had among them made him angry. To see one of the Hashira who Dōma was so close to killing not only alive and well, but also converted right there next to him, was adding insult to injury. It deeply infuriated him, but he kept it hidden under wraps. It didn't take a genius to figure out how Shinobu was transformed, and to think that there was another demon out there who could match his ability was unthinkable.
"Persistent. You're all seriously persistent, and it bores me to tears. It sickens me from the bottom of my heart." stated Muzan with an apathetic expression on his face, the cold feeling in his eyes and the sharpness of his tongues like spears that pierced their hearts. "Whenever you open your mouth, you only remember that one dumb notion about avenging the innocent. Your parents, kids, siblings, all of that rabble. You've all survived. That should be enough for you."
Inosuke choked on his own breath and Kanao almost lost it right then and there if it weren't for her better judgement. Shinobu's hands were quivering from how tightly she was gripping her sword, with the thought of even breaking it from her own strength passing through her mind.
Tanjirō, one the other hand, went completely still. His eyes went wide and he simply stared at Muzan in awe. To hear something so apathetic and cold come out of the man's mouth changed something inside of the young man. He knew that Muzan was a terrible being, but that idea's been even further warped.
"So your family got slaughtered, you lost a sibling or two, whatever. What's the problem here? Think of yourself as lucky, and go back to the way you lived life before." Muzan continued, shrugging his shoulders.
"What are you saying?" Tanjirō questioned.
"Look at it this way. Being killed by me is the same as encountering a great calamity. You don't need to think so hard about it. Rains, winds, volcano eruptions, earthquakes. You can't get revenge on a natural disaster, no matter how many lives it takes away. Most humans live their lives quietly, earning their daily wages. Why can't you all do that?"
Muzan's question fell on deaf ears, and he figured they wouldn't really respond to that.
"There's only one reason. The Demon Slayers are an assembly of deviants. And I'm tired of dealing with deviants. If you think about it, I'm the one who really wants to put an end to all this."
In an instant the entire mood in the room changed. Tanjirō's eyes lost all sort of color or emotion in them as his rage entered an entirely different state of existence. He appeared totally calm, but the truth was that beneath the surface, it was as if all of his organs and bones had been consumed by a rampaging inferno that threatened to break free.
Even Muzan could sense the change in the air, and he looked at his opposite with slightly narrowed eyes. The strength that Tanjirō had accumulated since their last meeting was nothing to be trifled with, and he could sense that the girl next to him was also considerably strong. Of course for him, he was still unbeatable, but that didn't mean he could just play around with them.
"Muzan, you are without a doubt, a being that should not be allowed to exist at all." Tanjirō murmured with practically no emotion in his tone, the tension in the air becoming dreadfully heavy.
Single-minded thoughts were passing through his head. Muzan couldn't be killed even if his neck was cut, which meant they had to drag him out to the sun in whatever way that was possible. The other Hashira were undoubtedly on their way, so until then, the four of them had to stand strong.
Muzan then muttered something under his breath and a black fog emerged from the mouths on his body, before his body vanished. In an instant he was right on top of them, the four slayers ducking away as the demon lord smashed his fist into the floor and created an explosion of debris that sent shrapnel and wood fragments flying outward. Wicked looking blades made of bone burst out from his skin and he threw his right arm out like a whip, tearing around the surrounding area and coming within inches of cleaving them into pieces.
Thanks to Shinobu's smaller stature and extreme agility, she was able to avoid any damage at all. Tanjirō was faring well too, but for the two of them, their primary concern was making sure that Kanao and Inosuke weren't hit at all.
Shinobu grit her teeth as she twirled her body through Muzan's assault and planted her feet into the ceiling, cracking it beneath them before shooting forward. An explosion of wind followed behind her and Muzan withdrew his arm in order to block her thrust. Her stinger blade pierced clean through his right forearm and blew away some of the skin and bone from the sheer force of it, but she had to quickly withdraw before she was hacked to pieces.
Tanjirō followed up with Inosuke and Kanao, but when Muzan sprouted more of the flesh and bone weapons from his back they were forced to dodge the storm of attacks they created.
"You're certainly better than some of the pests I've met after my revival, but you're not really trying to kill me...are you trying to buy time for the sun to rise?" Muzan questioned, seeing right through them and making Tanjirō growl. "The light won't reach into this fortress, and can you really manage when more of your allies have already died?"
"What do you mean?" questioned Shinobu as she leaped up to avoid the man as he tried to pummel her with his fists.
"The Hashira in the striped haori and the false demon with the strange hair already seem to have been killed by my subordinate, you know?"
Tanjirō and Shinobu both felt like they had been punched in the gut, while Kanao gasped and Inosuke exhaled sharply through his nostrils. Obanai and Mitsuri were dead? How? What had happened? Why hadn't they gotten a notification from a Kasugai crow?
Already so soon after losing Muichirō and Genya, if they really were gone, depending how injured the other Hashira were, their chances of beating Muzan had significantly dropped. What's more is that for Tanjirō and Shinobu, Mitsuri dying hurt them in another way outside of her being a valued comrade. Her smile and her cheery attitude were now gone forever.
Muzan hoped that revealing what he could see through Nakime's vision, the scene of Obanai bisected by two sections of the Infinity Fortress and Mitsuri completely liquified, would demoralize his foes.
In fact, quite the opposite happened. An explosion of fire erupted from Tanjirō's body and his Iron Blood Armor took immediate effect as he went after Muzan. They traded blow after blow, with Muzan's bone weapons and his fists making cracks and dents in his armor, but not managing to break through because the more Tanjirō bled from the attacks, the more powerful it got.
Shinobu gripped her sword tightly and grit her teeth, growling as the base of her neck and throat then developed a dark purple coloration to it.
"Kekkijutsu - Fuji Dokuso Kumo!" she exclaimed, her chest puffing up slightly before she exhaled a voluminous cloud of dark purple wisteria poison in gaseous form.
Muzan's nostrils instantly flared up at the stench of Wisteria and he saw the massive cloud roll toward him at a rapid pace, but he hardly did anything to avoid it. Such a trivial thing like Wisteria would do nothing to him was his first thought, before the cloud then struck him and Tanjirō in the midst of their brawl.
Almost instantly his skin burned and it felt like it was going to melt, which greatly surprised him to the point of disengaging from Tanjirō to avoid the cloud. Instantly he recognized it to be no ordinary cloud because of the demonic presence that the gas possessed, and he cursed Shinobu under his breath. To be a demon capable of manipulating one of the few things a demon could hardly stand was preposterous, yet there it was.
"From aboooove!"
A loud crashing sound like thunder came from above Muzan, where a section of the floor with all the tables and chairs set up suddenly exploded. Mitsuri came flying through with her long, whip-blade already poised to attack and fire in her eyes.
Muzan's head whipped around, staring at the woman he thought had certainly perished, or at least been incapacitated for a while, with wide eyes. Kanao, Inosuke, Tanjirō and Shinobu were also thrown for a loop at the Love Hashira's sudden appearance. But with one sniff of the iar, Tanjirō confirmed that it wasn't some kind of illusion that they were seeing, it was truly the real Mitsuri!
"Koi no kokyū, Roku no kata: Neko Ashi Kai Kazeeeee!" bellowed Mitsuri as she twirled herself around and around, creating multiple wide, sweeping attacks that struck Muzan multiple times on the chest and forced him back.
Mitsuri landed on both feet in front of Tanjirō and Shinobu, grinning a tiny bit at her attack's success, but soon pouted when Muzan showed practically no damage whatsoever. Rather than press another attack though, she stood by her friends, with Obani soon appearing from the hole created by her and acting as a shield for Inosuke and Kanao.
Once Muzan saw him too, he became confused. Through his shared eyesight with Nakime, he had seen for himself their deaths occur in real time. Obanai's bisection and Mitsuri's liquefaction, it was impossible for it to have been faked. He knew the Demon Slayer Corps could be crafty in certain situations but faking the deaths of two of their most high-profile members couldn't have been planned from the start.
So how? How were they alive? How were they here right now, at that moment? The frustration grew to a breaking point and Muzan shouted at his subordinate to try and figure out what was going on. That's when the whole Infinity Fortress seemed to shiver, as if it were alive and breathing.
"What am I doing? I'm manipulating this woman's vision, you dumbass." snarled Yushirō seemingly from the very walls around them.
What Muzan didn't realize had happened was Yushirō, using his talismans as a way to hide his presence, succeeded where Mitsuri and Obanai could not. He managed to finally get behind the Biwa demon and used another one of his talisman's to make it seem as though the two Hashira had been crushed by one of her attacks.
Then he had plunged his fingers deep into the sides of her cranium in order to directly link up with her, granting him total control over the entirety of Muzan's hidden fortress. That allowed him to open up a direct shortcut to where Muzan was for not only Obanai and Mitsuri, but for a few others who were nearby.
"Muzan, you have committed the heaviest sin in this world...you took Tamayo-sama from me. I'll make you kneel in regret!"
The whole chamber quaked once again, before a loud rumbling was heard getting closer and closer to them. All of a sudden the far wall was torn apart by the forced entry of two different sections of the Infinity Fortress, where the doors then opened up and spilled out more reinforcements.
Kyōjurō and Giyū came out first with their blades drawn, then Sanemi and Gyōmei from the other. The mere sight of Muzan made them tense up, but all four of them had both hatred and the desire for recompense for the lives taken burning in their hearts. A split second later there was a crackle of lightning and another hole was blasted through the floor, obliterating a few tables and chairs, as Zenitsu, who had been tended to by Yushirō after his quarrel with Kaigaku, appeared from it with a serious expression on his face. He glanced at Inosuke and Tanjirō, his closest friends, and nodded his head at the two of them before swallowing the fear amounting inside of him to stare Muzan down.
"Everyone! They're all here now!" Tanjirō thought, Shinobu smirking slightly as she made eye contact with the other Hashira and nodded her head.
"Seems like you ran into some trouble yourself there, Kochō-san. But I can see you're doing just fine, right?" Kyōjurō asked with a smile, his body letting out little flickering flames as he pointed his crimson blade at Muzan.
"Yeah. I don't think I have to tell you who made it possible, either." Shinobu replied, Sanemi grumbling a tiny bit before he fixed his gaze back on Muzan.
"This bastard is gonna pay…"
"I couldn't agree more." Gyōmei agreed while twirling his flail with such force that it was making the ceiling beneath him creak and bend.
The Infinity Fortress rumbled and groaned again, before it started to feel like every single part and section of the near-endless labyrinth began to move upwards. Muzan had to catch his balance a little, as did the Hashira, Inosuke, Zenitsu and Kanao. That could only mean one thing.
Yushirō was using his control over Nakime and, by extension the Infinity Fortress, to drive them upwards towards the surface where Muzan could be exposed to the only weakness that was sure to kill him. The light of the morning sun.
Shinjurō and Amai were still diligently guarding the Ubuyashiki siblings, ever vigilant for any kind of threats that could come there way. They had overheard every little tidbit that was said by the three siblings beyond the doors they sat in front of, and to say they were worried was an understatement.
They had already lost dozens of slayers to Muzan, and with Muichirō and Genya dead, and others beaten up, it was going to take every single ounce of willpower and strength to bring Muzan to his knees. It was terrifying to hear of how easily the progenitor of demons annihilated entire squads of slayers in mere seconds.
"Do you think they'll win?" Amai asked quietly, the demon glancing at Shinjurō with a worried gaze.
"They were able to kill the remaining Upper Moons...I'm confident that together, they will."
Amai felt comforted by the older swordsman's words and she smiled a little, turning her gaze away from him to again focus on their surroundings.
It didn't take long for something to catch their attention, when some rustling deep in the woods in front of them reached their ears. Amai squinted her eyes and looked through the eyes of her spiders that were spread out around the complex, allowing her to see what was making the noise.
What she saw made her cover her mouth and gasp. Before Shinjurō could ask what she had seen the demon was on her feet and running into the trees, which made him stand up and have his sword already in hand in case the worst case scenario had happened. He hadn't used his weapon in years, not since he had retired from the position of Flame Hashira before his son.
He was ready to lay down his life once again for the cause, regardless of who was coming after them. Sweat dripped down his brow. Bring it on, he thought. If tonight was the night he was going to die, he'd rather do it fighting then wallowing away in self-pity.
Instead of some kind of demon servant of Muzan appearing though, it was something he considered far worse. Amai was running towards him with a heavily wounded Urokodaki leaning against her body, the left side of his body drenched with blood that was oozing from his severed arm. His trademark mask was also cracked, with a broken piece missing from the left cheek that exposed a portion of what seemed to be a neatly trimmed bear.
"Sankonji! What in the blazes happened to you?!" exclaimed Shinjurō as he rushed to Amai's aid, carrying him up to his home and through the doors right into Kiriya's planning room.
The shock on Ubuyashiki siblings' faces at seeing Nezuko's protector here, instead of at his home on Sagiri Mountain, was enough to immediately wrench them away from the battle raging with Muzan to him. Instantly Kanata and Kuina dashed out of the room to fetch medical supplies as Sakonji was lowered onto his back, a sputtering cough coming out from his lips.
"Sakonji, what happened? Was it Nezuko? Or something else?" Shinjurō asked of the former Water Hashira, while Amai frantically tried to use her webs to stop the blood flow from his arm.
"They...they took her...they took her, Shinjurō…" he replied with a wheeze.
"Who did? Kibutsuji?"
"No, something...else," Sakonji said with a head shake. "Them...one of those...like the one who...took Tanjirō. A foreigner…"
Shinjurō raised his eyes up from his injured former comrade, meeting Kiriya's gaze, as a feeling of dread descended upon them. In their strive to eliminate Muzan and free Japan from his carnage, they had completely overlooked one small detail. A third player, the very same one that had directly led to Tanjirō's kidnapping and temporary service to Muzan as the Upper Moon Six. They had presumed that Michael, the man who Kyōjurō had slain when rescuing Tanjirō, was just some kind of special demon who was in league with Muzan, but now it was evident that something else was amiss.
Muzan had no idea that Nezuko was there, that they were certain of. It had to be the work of this mysterious third party they made the mistake of ignoring up until now who discovered her location. And now that she was gone, their original plan of keeping her far away from the battle was now shattered.
The assembled Hashira, Zenitsu, Inosuke and Kanao were engaged with Muzan in a bitter fight that was rapidly destroying the room they were in every passing second. Yushirō from his position with Nakime could see everything that was happening and was trying to assist his allies any way he could.
With a rumble he changed their position to an entirely new area, forcing Muzan to direct his attention to both him and the enemies before him. Yushirō could feel Muzan's influence start to seep into his mind, starting by a discoloration and corruption beginning to spread through his fingers up and up his arms. The younger demon fought back against the Demon Lord, and with Tanjirō and company assisting by attacking the man directly, he could keep himself sane so that he could continue utilizing Nakime to bring the fortress closer and closer to the surface.
"Stop interfering and die!" Muzan roared as he kicked Inosuke away, his cry directed towards Yushirō.
"Mizu no kokyū, Shi no kata: Uchishio!"
"Hebi no kokyū, Ichi no kata: Idagiri!"
A two-pronged assault by Obanai and Giyū forced Muzan again to focus on his enemies, his back growing several large bone spikes as he used his hands and forearms to block and deflect their blades while lunging at them at the same time. Cuts were made on his body but they instantly healed, before the floor suddenly turned into two massive sliding doors that opened up, revealing a chasm that sent him falling into it along with the two Hashira.
Tanjirō and the others were quick to follow, bouncing back and forth from wall to wall of the chasm to trade blows with the Demon Lord and continue to press the attack. Shinobu and Kyōjurō with their blinding speed blindsided Muzan left and right, their Insect Breathing and Flame Breathing techniques frustrating him to no end until he finally decided enough was enough.
Firstly, to handle the situation with Yushirō, he clenched his hand tightly and instantly started to crush Nakime's head with his own cells in her body. He gasped as her blood splattered over his hands and clothes, but he kept directing her to raise the Infinity Fortress to the surface.
"Dammit, he's trying to kill her! If she dies, the whole fortress will come apart and crush everyone except for Muzan!" Yushirō thought, a snarl escaping his lips as he plunged his fingertips deeper into the dying Upper Moon's skull to wrest more control away from her and Muzan to himself.
They shifted rooms yet again when the chasm ended and dropped them onto a large platform made up of joined together rooms and floors that was littered with the corpses of slain Demon Slayers. Tanjirō felt an extreme sadness creep over his heart as he laid eyes on the carnage, but it was quickly replaced with anger at their deaths.
Gyōmei brutally attacked Muzan with his weapon in conjunction with Sanemi and Kyōjurō, the three Hashira risking everything to try and keep Muzan occupied until they could reach the surface.
The rumbling taking place around them grew louder and louder as the Infinity Fortress started breaking apart, with the abyss of connected hallways and rooms coming down all around the platform they stood on.
"The fortress is coming apart around us! If we don't get outside, we're all going to be squished flat!" Obanai thought as a sense of urgency overtook him, spurring his body on to fight harder.
All of a sudden the structure they were standing on shook before it began rising up incredibly fast away from the breaking sections, the force strong enough to knock them off balance a little. Mitsuri shrieked when one of Muzan's flesh tendrils shot, and Tanjirō reacted on pure instinct by picking up one of the fallen slayer's swords and igniting it with the Hinokami Kagura before hurling it right at Muzan.
He recoiled when the flaming blade struck him right in the side of the head, piercing clean through his skull and brain out the other side, causing him to lose focus just enough for Mitsuri to dodge his attack. He snarled at the young man with daggers in his eyes, before another loud crash was heard as Yushirō manipulated the Infinity Fortress one last time.
He looked up as their ascent hastened and noticed the pitch black ceiling fast approaching. The Hashira and others were pinned to the floor and braced themselves as the section they were on, plus several other parts, then burst upward through toi what lay beyond. The brisk night air was what hit them first as they came to while laying amongst the rubble of the Infinity Fortress, and it took them a second to realize where they were. Having emerged near a harbor, the sheer size of it and the amount of docked vessels there told them all they needed to know.
"We're outside...but we brought him right into Tokyo!" exclaimed Sanemi, the other Hashira quickly coming to for when Muzan would make his own emergence.
"Dammit, there's gotta be loads of people here, and it's not even dawn yet…" Obanai cursed while looking around at all of the buildings and the night sky. "How are we going to evacuate the people and keep Muzan contained at the same time?"
"We're just going to have to figure it out. Oyakata-sama should already know the situation and have dispatched the Kakushi to aid in making the area safe for battle!" Gyōmei announced to soothe the worries of his comrades.
"Where's he gonna come out, where...I can't sense him at all with all these disturbances!"
Inosuke snorted as he looked around them at every possible place, from building to pile of fortress rubble that had risen with them from beneath.
None of them ever would have guessed that leaving the Infinity Fortress would take them right to the very capital of the nation, and it scared them to think just how big it was in its entirety. Did it stretch out beneath the entire city? The whole country?
Those thoughts were pushed aside by a resounding boom nearby and they turned towards it, seeing a plume of dust and debris that signaled to them that Muzan was free and out in the open. He leaped to the top of the mound of fragmented wood and other materials and glared at them with dozens of flesh tentacles protruding from his back, which made him look like some nightmarish spider monster with rage burning in his gaze.
"Do you honestly intend to keep me here until sunrise…? Try it if you-" Muzan started with a snarl before the call of a Kasugai crow cut him off, the bird flying over them with a sense of urgency.
"Kamado Nezuko has been taken! Caww! Repeat, Kamado Nezuko has been taken by the enemy!" it announced, its words sending a chill running up and down everybody's spines.
Tanjirō was hit the absolute hardest by the news when he nearly collapsed to his knees, eyes wide in shock. How could their plan have crumbled to this point? They had made extra sure that his sister had been transported with the utmost level of secrecy to Sagiri Mountain where his former sensei would watch over her.
When Muzan heard the news, his rage was soon replaced with glee as he grinned maliciously at them, lowering his guard at the same time. They could not kill him even if they tried, and there was still plenty of time before sunrise. Torres had come through with his end of the bargain, since he was certain it was his doing, and he could finally achieve what he had so desperately yearned for. The perfect body he was promised would finally be his after hundreds of years of searching.
"There were some mild irritations along the way, but the end result will be the same...finally, after so long, I can have no fear of-"
Muzan's chest burst wide open when he was suddenly struck from behind by a huge icicle made of black ice, the impact knocking the wind out of him and paralyzing him momentarily. Initially thinking it was some kind of attack by another traitorous demon, he tried to absorb it, but quickly found out that it was impossible. Whatever enemy had hurled the hunk of ice into his body was no demon, nor was it human.
Tanjirō, Shinobu and the others were left dumbstruck by what had just occurred before their very eyes as well. They had no idea who or what had just attacked the demon lord without warning, but they soon got a slight indication when they heard the sound of clapping coming from somewhere nearby.
"Well done slayers, well done...you exceeded all of my expectations." spoke a voice as the clapping stopped, the assembled Demon Slayers turning their heads to a nearby building.
Emerging from the shadows was the man Muzan was thinking of himself, the recently made Cardinal Torres, his eyes gazing down on them as he held his hands behind his back. His face to them was a mystery, but when he looked at Muzan and the shock on his face, the puzzle pieces connected in their minds and dread started creeping back into their hearts.
Muzan snarled and tried to remove the ice from his chest, before several more struck all of his limbs at once in what seemed to be random locations and brought him to his knees, blood being expunged from his lips as he gasped.
"Who the hell are you, shitface? And can you tell us what the fuck is going on?!" shouted Sanemi angrily at Torres, who chuckled back at him and looked towards the moon.
"It's a beautiful night, isn't it? The cool breeze, the stillness of the air...it's perfect."
"Answer the questions." Giyū said in a low tone, his gaze hardening on the man.
"I have to thank you for delivering Muzan to me and getting rid of the last of his henchmen. It saved me the trouble. God's plan for Salvation can continue unhindered by their interference now."
Torres raised a hand up and as Muzan struggled to remove even one of the icicles from his arm, the ground rumbled behind him for a few seconds before from the earth erupted titanic ice Buddha, its body glimmering from the moon's glow as it towered over the incapacitated demon lord.
Tanjirō and Kanao both gasped at the sight of the ice construct, their hearts sinking deep into their stomachs along with Inosuke as Muzan turned his head around to watch in horror at his unavoidable end. He tried to move, but with the icicles pierced through his most vital points, a way that kept himself alive without anyone else knowing, he was paralyzed. What's more was the drug injected into his body by Tamayo, he deduced, was far more potent beyond just a simple demonification reversion drug.
Delving deep into the memories left in Tamayo's cells, he discovered the awful truth. The drug she had made was a hybrid, with several stages meant to enact at the same time as soon as it entered his blood stream. The first stage was to turn him back into a human, and the second an aging effect that would rapidly advance his age every single minute. It finally dawned on him with how his hair had turned white and wasn't reverting back. Every minute he had spent outside of his flesh cocoon had advanced his age by fifty years, which would consequently have reduced his strength the longer he kept fighting.
If Torres' betrayal was not factored in, he still would have met his end. He was doomed from the start, fated to suffer a bitter defeat against those who despised him. Kagaya's prophecy came rushing back to the forefront of his mind and he trembled. The awakened beast that he had set upon himself. All of it was coming down right on top of him, and in his last few moments, he cursed himself and his foresightedness. He cursed the Demon Slayer Corps for their inability to surrender. He cursed Torres for his betrayal. And most of all he cursed the world for having ever given birth to him.
Then, to Tanjirō's horror, Muzan was then frozen to the spot by the subzero breath of the ice Bodhisattva. From the inside out he was turned into nothing more than a glorified ice sculpture that depicted his screaming face in frozen horror. Torres laughed to himself as he then flung his arm arm, the limb from the elbow down turning pitch black and stretching down from the roof all the way to the demon's frozen body in order to hit it dead square in the chest.
Tendrils wrapped out around Muzan's whole body, before the limb consumed his body entirely and simultaneously broke it down and absorbed it in a matter of seconds. Torres then withdrew his arm once Muzan was gone, leaving behind no more loose ends to tie up. He then peered at the ice statue as it melted away, a black figure leaping out from behind its body and landing next to him, the person's face making the ones who met him be utterly dumbstruck.
"Hey hey, friends! Nice to meet all of you, and good to see those I've already met again~! It was pretty weird being dead at first, but now I just don't feel anything at all!"
Standing there next to Torres, in the flesh, was the very demon Tanjirō, Kanao and Insouke had watched rot away into a bubbling mass of corrupted flesh before Kanao had managed to decapitate him.
It was Dōma, whose clothes matched those he wore when he was still the Upper Moon Two under service to Muzan, only now they were grey-scaled and his rainbow colored eyes no longer had the distinctive tattoo markings denoting his position. He looked human for the most part, albeit still with his pale skin, but they all knew he was no such thing.
Seeing his crooked smile and the utter lack of human emotion in his eyes was enough to make Shinobu start to panic a little, her eyes seeing her younger self holding her dying sister in her arms again. Tanjirō and Mitsuri were quick to respond, with the former putting his arm around her and the latter stepping to be right by her side. His appearance was enough to make Kanao freeze up too, the same terror she had in her heart when she fought him slowly coming back from the grave.
"How…? How are you still alive?! We saw you die!" shouted Tanjirō, angry at Muzan dying before he or any of the other Hashira could do it for him, and flabbergasted at Dōma's apparent revival.
"You could call it God's grace or whatever this guy would call it, I'd just say I was lucky to have met him is all!" Dōma said with a light-hearted chuckle, his voice alone making Sanemi grind his teeth in irritation.
"Can somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?! Who the fuck are these guys and why the hell did they just kill Kibutsuji before we could grind the motherfucker up into pieces?!" Sanemi snarled, with veins bulging out from the side of his head.
"Like any wretched creature such as him, Muzan's end was fated by God. His death was the last stepping stone needed in order for Salvation to truly come into place." Torres said once he put his hands behind his back again, his empty, almost lifeless eyes scanning the growing crowd of slayers beneath them as more regular forces joined them from the Infinity Fortress.
"Once you figured out that he had seven hearts and five brains, it was a cinch to pierce all of them with my ice and freeze him." Dōma said before leaning forward and fixating one of his unnerving smiles on the slayers, the former demon plunging a finger into the side of his head to cause black sludge to ooze out, confirming his transformation into something else entirely. "Though I doubt you meat sacks would have figured that out in time. If he had soaked any of you in his blood, it would've ended up killing you in the end anyways, so honestly, thank me~!"
He focused on where Tanjirō and those closest to them stood and removed the finger from his head, licking the black sludge away as the wound healed up and laughed at them. Shinobu shivered and swallowed her past fears in order to stand resolute against him, alongside Tanjirō, Mitsuri and Kanao, who had joined them now to act as almost like a buffer.
"Answer the damn question and spit out how you lived, you shithead!" yelled Inosuke while flailing his swords at the former Upper Moon, who feigned surprise and offense by covering his mouth and appearing taken aback.
"Goodness me, you really want to know? It's simple. Torres-dono here took some of my blood and used it to make a 'seed' that let me be revived once you killed my old body! Did you honestly think I was actually fighting at full strength~?"
Dōma's light-hearted laugh after the reveal made Kanao and Insouke both growl at him, while Tanjirō and Shinobu only scowled and remained silent. Anything they did or said would only fuel the malicious entity's fucked up nature, so instead of giving him any more ammunition they bit their tongues and held back anything they could say or do.
Torres then turned his head the opposite direction from which Dōma appeared and after a few moments a third figure appeared, with their form hid entirely beneath the long cloak they wore with only something reminiscent of an octopus tentacle coming out of their sleeve.
"Nezuko!" cried Tanjirō when he saw his little sister flailing about in the person's arms, unable to break free from it.
The drug Tamayo had administered her was still in affect, and had been working up until her kidnapping that had only just been reported. One of her eyes had returned to normal while the other was still that of a demon's, with the same half and half effect present with her teeth.
"Help! Am scared…!" Nezuko shrieked, still not fully able to speak properly, even when the drug had gone this far to turn her back.
"You let her go right now, bastards!"
Tanjirō's snarl created a shockwave of power as flames erupted across his body, his fists clenched so tightly the hand not holding his sword made blood gush out from his palm onto the ground. The show of power did nothing to phase Torres and Dōma though as the former greeted the newcomer with a smile and a pat on the shoulder.
"You did well, son." Torres said, the man bowing slightly.
"Anything to get their voices out of my head, Father...the regret, the sadness...I want all of it gone…" spoke the person, before walking behind the two of them and looking out to sea.
"And it will be, I promise." Torres said before he grasped Nezuko firmly by her hair, holding her in front of him as her screams filled the night air and only infuriated her older brother even more. "Tonight is the Eve of Salvation, wayward souls! Now that the catalyst has been acquired, God's plan cannot be stopped! The evolution of mankind into God's intended, perfect form is nigh! I pray that all of you shall live to see it!"
Immediately, out of nowhere, a giant tendril of black flesh mixed with what seemed like scales then grabbed the three of them and Nezuko, her scream being cut off as it then yanked them off high into the air away from the slayers. Tanjirō shouted helplessly as he watched them grow fainter and fainter in the distance before they were plunged into the water by the tentacle.
From their vantage point they then watched a large, black object rise up from the depths and sit on the surface of the water, like some ominous sea monster eyeing its prey. Seconds later bright lights were seen, followed by several loud booms reminiscent of thunder that made a few of them jump. Then suddenly the building next to them exploded in a huge fireball that sent chunks of wood and stone raining down onto their heads. A handful of other explosions went off around them in the same vicinity, turning the scene chaotic as everybody tried to protect themselves and others from the hell occurring around them.
The bombardment of who knows what kind of thing sitting in the harbor laid waste to the entire city area where the Demon Slayer Corps was, creating massive craters and leveling entire buildings in a savage bid to cause as much wide-spread destruction as possible.
Within the carnage Tanjirō went to Shinobu, Mitsuri and anyone else who was close to him before he formed a dome of his blood around them to wait out the devastation.
For fifteen minutes straight the unknown vessel pounded away at them with whatever kind of weaponry it had capable of hitting them from that far away, lighting up the night like it was the Fourth of July as fireballs went off every few seconds. Eventually it came to a stop though, and the vessel then sank beneath the waves, disappearing without a trace.
Tanjirō heard the last few explosions go off before everything became unnervingly silent outside, so he first checked to make sure Mitsuri, Shinobu and Kanao were okay before glancing over at Zenitsu.
"Is everybody okay…?" he asked with a grunt, his back pressed against the top of his blood dome to help support the weight of the rubble on top of it. Shinobu coughed and nodded her head, while Mitsuri wiped some dust away from her face and helped Kanao to her knees.
Tanjirō growled and slowly began rising to his feet, pushing the tons of rubble currently laying on top of them before he eventually threw it off entirely. The stone landed around them with a crash and when the blood dome went down, they were treated to the scene of a disaster.
Everywhere they looked there was nothing but destruction, with massive flaming craters and ruining buildings as far as they could see. Torres had shown no mercy to them with the weapon he had at his disposal, with the amount of carnage it could cause unlike anything they had seen before from a demon. It was brutish and raw.
"Anyone! Is anyone still out there?!" Shinobu shouted while cupping her hands around her mouth, hoping to hear some kind of response.
"This is creeping me out...it's too quiet…" murmured Zenitsu with a shiver, the cowardly side of his personality coming back from where he had buried it.
"Over here!"
Tanjirō and Shinobu looked at one another, then back at Zenitsu, Kanao and Mitsuri, who nodded at them, before they all went towards the sound of the voice and saw Gyōmei and Kyōjurō in the process of moving a massive slab of stone out of the way from the hole in the street they found themselves in. Inside they found Giyū clutching his right shoulder as blood oozed from where his right arm used to be. Right next to him was another slab of rock that had huge blood stains around it on the ground, which meant somehow, in the confusion, it had fallen right onto his arm and took it off completely.
Inosuke was frantically trying to stop the bleeding by haphazardly applying bandages before Kyōjurō, now free, came to his side to help put them on properly. Gyōmei already had tears in his eyes as he looked down at his injured ally, before he quickly remembered they still needed to find Sanemi and the other slayers who had joined them.
"Shinazugawa...we need to find Shinazugawa!" he exclaimed, Tanjirō immediately hopping on the job with his sense of smell leading the way.
It didn't take him very long to locate Sanemi's scent among a concentration of others, so when he smashed his way through several tons of debris to reach them, his heart twisted up inside at what he found. Within a cavity that had miraculously been formed around the surviving slayers, Murata surprisingly being one of them, above them stood Sanemi facing them with a building fragment Tanjirō hadn't removed on his back. Rebar was sticking out from the sides of the stone, and as he climbed down into the cavity to reach him, his stomach flipped end over end when he saw other shafts of the building material pierced through Sanemi's shoulder and abdomen around his stitched up wound from Kokushibō.
He was barely alive, wheezing softly with each breath he took. Sanemi had little time left, and it tore Tanjirō up inside to see that. Murata and the other slayers with him looked up at the Wind Hashira as he moved his head slightly to look at them, and then at Tanjirō.
"I'm...a fucking mess...aren't I…" he asked painfully, Tanjirō disregarding his self quip and carefully tried to remove the stone. "Don't even try...just cut the fucking rebar...dammit…"
"Shinazugawa-san…"
Tanjirō clenched his jaw a little before he stepped back and expertly used his sword to cut through the rebar shafts connecting him to the stone without hurting him any further. Once the stone dropped to the ground Sanemi nearly fell to his knees if it weren't for Tanjirō and the other slayers catching him.
Sanemi coughed up blood and shivered a tiny bit, his sword falling out of his fingers and rolling down the slope of the cavity until it reached the bottom. Tanjirō and him looked one another in the eyes before Sanemi gripped his arm and grunted.
"You're still...a brat...but...one I finally understand…" Sanemi said, Tanjirō's eyes widening a little as he watched the Wind Hashira, for the first time, give him a little smile. "I'm sorry...for being such an ass to you...and your sister...I bet I look pretty pathetic...saying this now…"
"Please stop talking, Shinazugawa-san, please stop...we're gonna get you the help you need. I promise. Genya wouldn't want you to die like this!"
"Don't give me that...shit...it was gonna happen sooner...or later...right now, listen here, and listen good...tell that little sister of yours...that I'm sorry for the shit I put her through…"
Sanemi coughed a little while laughing, before more blood oozed out from his mouth and with a final gasp, his head rolled to the side and he died right there in Tanjirō's arms. Part of his soul perished right then and there with the Wind Hashira, even though the man up till then had been nothing but rude and abrasive towards him and Nezuko.
From the very beginning, when they first met, Sanemi had been antagonistic of the siblings because he didn't trust them in the slightest. Even when their achievements proved their worth and the other Hashira started to come around, Sanemi along with Obanai remained obstinate. But now, right before dying, he apologized for all of it, and for Tanjirō, who never really hated him, it was enough to make up for all of it.
Back where the others were with the injured Giyū, they turned their heads when they heard Tanjirō return, expecting some kind of good news, but instead they received the worst kind when they watched him join them with Sanemi in his arms. Murata and his company of slayers followed behind, sullen and downtrodden, with their arms at their sides.
Yushirō, who then made his appearance after exiting the Infinity Fortress' ruins with more members of the corps, stopped where he stood and looked on in silence. Something terrible had occurred while he had been trying to make his way out from the fortress after freeing himself from Nakime, who disintegrated soon after.
Muzan was dead, but at what cost? Nezuko had been taken by Torres and his third party, which now included a surprise addition in the form of Dōma, and Sanemi had now joined the list of casualties. They were at a loss at what to do. Their best-laid plan, even with casualties factored in, had come to utter ruin.
What could they possibly do?
A/N BIGGEST OF YIKES. This chapter was a doozy for me, not because of its length, but because of the huge risk I'm taking with it in where the plot of this story was going. I'd hope that all of you guys who have come this far would have recognized that Muzan wasn't gonna live to see the end of it (as if he was), but still I'm hoping that this will go over well with you guys!
And another thing, how the fuck did Dōma come back!? The bastard just won't die, huh! Don't worry, I still hate him very much, but...I've got a little something something planned for him. I wouldn't have brought him back without a reason, and I just thought the idea of one of Muzan's henchmen literally stabbing him in the back would have been such a hilarious thing to have happened to him. Anyways! That's it for me on this, it's getting really exciting now, because here's where the big diverge occurs. As Doctor Strange quoted, we're in the endgame now, ladies and gents.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, so please leave a fav and a follow if you have not already! Also drop a review telling me what you thought! I'll see you guys in the next one, the big five oh! Chapter 50 baby!
Translation(s):
Kekkijutsu - Fuji Dokuso Kumo
- Blood Demon Technique - Wisteria Toxin Cloud
Koi no kokyū, Roku no kata: Neko Ashi Kai Kaze
- Love Breathing, Sixth Form: Kitty Paw Love Breeze
Mizu no kokyū, Shi no kata: Uchishio
- Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide
Hebi no kokyū, Ichi no kata: Idagiri
- Serpent Breathing, First Form: Winding Serpent Slash