Wavering Measures, Continuing Resolve

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest chapter for Breath of the Rifleman! The fight against Muzan continues but now some complications may be arising. Also, a quick heads up, for those who chose Option B in the Armory of the Forgotten Hero poll, I'll be putting up another little poll next week for the fun of it with some story ideas. Naturally the jury's still out for another week on the outcome of that vote, but it'll be fun to see what other stories you folks might be interested in when I do get around to them. And as always a quick shout out to LoneTaker, groche9655 and Noble Eight for their contributions to this story, and before I forget, another shout out to AouiEita18 for another amazing cover work for my God Eater fic, American God Eater: Wyatt Colt. If you don't mind my early, terrible grammar, feel free to check it out. Now then, onto the story!

Nighttime: Asakusa

"And here we are folks, witnessing the continuing battle against the Demon Lord Muzan," announced Shuten Doji through Yushiro's tag.

"And we're using the title 'Demon Lord' very loosely here," added Ibaraki, "anyway, what's been happening so far?"

"Well for the moment it seems the Kamado boy is down but not dead," replied Shuten, "so who knows when or if he'll be back. But the real excitement is kicking up as the timely arrival of an antidote carrying cat and many other reinforcements has freed up Subaru Genjirou so he can now finally get back to facing Muzan with the other Hashira!"

"Talk about a turn of fortune," commented Ibaraki, "but the sun is still almost an hour away, and with every possible second meaning potential death, how long will our little slayers down there be able to hold out?"

"Long enough to make this one of the most entertaining nights we've had in a long while, I hope," said Shuten Doji, "now let's see where they're at right now." The answer to that question, was fighting for their lives. And it was a fight that had been going on for several minutes now down on the streets.

"Bayonet Dance Five-Fold," said Subaru as he twirled his rifle around his body at the fasted speed he could, deflecting one tendril after another as it glanced off his bayonet and the stock of his weapon. He once again found himself impressed with Hidan's ingenuity in crafting the Jager rifle he was using now, especially its durability. Though even moving the rifle as fast as he could, the Matagi still felt the occasional cut on his body.

"Subaru," said Giyuu, more than a little concerned upon seeing a large slash get through and hit the hunter in the hip.

"I'll be fine," assured the Matagi as he began to bob and weave a bit to make himself a harder target, "just worry about carving this bastard up until there's nothing left!"

"That we can do," exclaimed Sanemi as he deflected several of Muzan's tendrils with one of his techniques. He, along with Gyomei, Obanai and Giyuu were quickly dodging around their opponent looking to get at least within the medium range of his attacks. Every now and then they'd move between Muzan and Subaru to deflect some of the tendrils and take the burden off of the Matagi. The Rifleman would fire a potshot every so often during the rare moments when Muzan became more focused on one of the other slayers.

'We're holding our own for now,' Subaru thought to himself, 'but we need to do more damage. I'm having a hard enough time dodging and blocking right now that even attempting my Obsidian Snow technique could prove fatal.' As he continued to ponder other strategies, his rifle suddenly seemed to be snagged by something. "Oh shit," he swore aloud as he yanked his rifle back to him, realizing that it had been nearly sucked out of his hands by one of the mouths on Muzan's tendrils.

Even if it was only a momentary break in his movements, it was still enough of an opening for Muzan to aim an attack for his head. Subaru was just barely able to bend back in time, practically feeling the appendage as it went over his nose. But Muzan was far from done as he attacked again, this time scoring a hit below the knee on Subaru's left leg. The Matagi had to catch himself from falling as a third attack was directed at him.

This time, though, luck was on Subaru's side as a familiar spiked flail came out of nowhere and smashed the tendril heading for him. "Be wary, the mouths on Muzan's tendrils will suck you in if you're not careful. And remember to protect each other as well as yourselves," announced Gyomei as he batted away attack after attack, "we win this by staying alive!"

"Don't have to tell me twice," said Subaru as he resumed deflecting Muzan's attacks. It didn't take him long to come up with a plan against the tendril mouths as each time he felt the pull, he'd use it to assist him in dodging by jumping or rolling towards it before batting the limb itself away with either his rifle or his foot. This seemed to anger the Demon Lord even more as he started slamming his tendrils on the ground at random intervals. Even if the attacks missed them, they still left small craters in the ground that would most definitely trip them up if they weren't careful.

Subaru thought that was the case for Obanai when he saw him stumble at one point. Upon closer inspection, he found that the Serpent Hashira's blade had actually turned red, the kind of legendary red that was said to slay even the most vicious of demons. Though any elation the Matagi might've felt at the sight was quickly drowned by the fact that Obanai was still stumbling as if he was lightheaded and needed to catch his breath, which was pretty much the case. "IGUROOOOO!" Exclaimed Sanemi in an attempt to warn his friend of an impending tendril attack from behind.

Subaru knew there was nothing he could do at that moment given the tight defensive setup he had with his technique going. All he could do was hope that the closest Hashira, Giyuu, would get there in time. A hope that seemed to be in vain as the Water Hashira slashed desperately at the oncoming tendril with one of his techniques, hitting it just after it impacted. 'Shit, Obanai's down,' thought Subaru in rage until he noticed something was off.

The crater where Iguro was had no sign of a body in it, or even a stain of blood. That's when he saw it, a shadow on the ground which prompted him to look up and see that the Serpent Hashira was indeed alive, and seemingly flying through the air. Muzan attempted to capitalize on the opening by whipping one of his arm tendrils at the airborne Hashira. But confusion crossed his face as he saw the slayer suddenly move sideways in the air as if he was being pulled along.

'Well I'll be,' thought Subaru as he looked closer, 'I guess we have some arrivals to this party who decided to show up fashionably late.' He looked back towards Muzan then as his arm and two tendrils were suddenly cut off. He attempted to counterattack by whipping his tendrils but only succeeded in hitting empty air. The other Hashira resumed their attacks on Muzan, not giving him time to figure out what was happening as he got his other arm sliced off by the same invisible force.

At least it was invisible to him and the other Hashira, but Subaru could see who was attacking rather well now that he knew to be looking for them with his own powerful vision. There were three of them and while they were beat up, they could still move around fairly well, more than well enough to keep cutting into the opponent before them. Though their advantage didn't last long as Muzan caught a glimpse of some dirt being kicked up on the ground where his invisible assailants were stepping. That turned out to be all he needed to make a strike which cut through the tags on the heads of the slayers, revealing them to be Inosuke, Kanao and Zenitsu.

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHH," Yelled the blond slayer, "I hate this, he figured us out already?!"

"That hurt my face you little maggot!" Added Inosuke, just as lively as ever while commenting on the nasty scratch he just received.

"You guys are alive," said Subaru, Gyomei and Giyuu all at the same time while continuing to evade and parry Muzan's attacks.

"Like I'd die to something as silly as a collapsing fortress, dumbasses," said Inosuke as he began throwing out a mass of Yushiro's paper tags while directing his attention to Muzan, "and I brought plenty of these paper thingies too, so no matter how many times you cut them off we'll have-GAAAAAAHHH!"

"Stop spouting useless nonsense," said an irritated Muzan as he narrowly missed the Boar Fighter with one of his attacks. He would've tried for another, but his attention was again diverted by Obanai slashing through nearly all of his tendrils with his Slithering Serpent technique. The Demon Lord seemed to pay this attack little mind like he did several of the others until he noticed something was off: his limbs were growing back a lot slower than before.

"Wow, look how slow that is," quipped Sanemi, "it looks like red blades slow down your regeneration when you get cut by them!" Subaru might've commented on how he was stating the obvious, but he instead used that moment to ready one of his other techniques while Kanao and Zenitsu quickly grabbed and placed more of Yushiro's tags on their heads, rendering them invisible once more.

"Stop with these pitiful schemes you pathetic weaklings!" Exclaimed Muzan as he intensified his attacks once again. But with no quick way to locate Zenitsu and Kanao, he took hits from their techniques, Thunderclap and Flash and Safflower Robe. Obanai was quick to follow up with his Coil Choke technique, slicing off several of Muzan's tendrils and slowing his regeneration.

"I thank you all for your timely arrival," said Gyomei, "now I can finally try this!" He slammed his ax and mace together with an incredible amount of force, causing them to grind and generate a fair amount of heat through the friction. The result was two shining weapons that glowed red like Iguro's sword was currently doing. 'It worked,' thought the Stone Pillar in relief, 'I unconsciously used this technique in Hokkaido, though it was incomplete at the time. Even now I won't be able to maintain it for long, but in that time I can still do some damage!'

And he intended to capitalize on his weapon's current state as he used his senses to find an opening before bashing through Muzan's entire left shoulder with his flail, tearing off his arm in the process as well. Sanemi, seeing what just occurred, made his way over to Giyuu where he clashed his blade against a new one Giyuu had managed to grab from a fallen slayer as a replacement. The grinding of their nichirin blades created heat that turned them both shining red, giving them a much-needed increase in attack power. "Caw, one hour and three minutes until sunrise!" Squawked a Kasugai Crow.

"You really should keep that to yourself for right now," commented Subaru as he slid into the fray while deflecting tendrils with his rifle. "Breath of the Rifleman Fifth form: Obsidian Snow!" He leapt back the moment he released the explosives, knowing full well that Muzan's wild attacks would strike at least one of them. And he'd hardly gotten a couple steps away when it did happen, leading to a chain of blasts that staggered Muzan as he turned his eyes on the Matagi.

"More wretched hunting contraptions!" Sneered Muzan as he focused more attacks on Subaru. But this would turn out to be a mistake as Gyomei scored another hit with his flail, tearing out most of Muzan's left hip and stomach. Sanemi followed up on that attack with his own technique, Breath of the Wind Seventh Form: Gale-Sudden Gusts, which shredded into the Demon Lord with circular gusts of wind from his sword.

"Everyone!" Announced Gyomei suddenly, "look closely at his body and tell me, does your vision change? Does he look transparent to any of you?!" 'Not really,' thought Subaru, though he looked closer at the regenerating demon anyway, 'but I've been keeping an eye on his movements more closely than any other opponent. Not so long ago, I figured out how to anticipate my opponent's movements by watching how their muscles twitch and flex. But perhaps if I concentrate Willow's Windpath to its absolute extreme, I'll see more than just the weaknesses in an opponent's moves.'

And concentrate he did, watching the numerous paths of wind flow around Muzan's body where they settled on a dozen separate locations. 'Of course, Muzan has an excess number of vital organs, far more than a normal person would have. By the looks of it, there are twelve places to strike, but their locations aren't static, meaning Kibutsuji has been moving them around in his body the whole fight. That explains why he won't die from decapitation, but if we hit all twelve locations simultaneously or in quick succession, we might stand a chance of crippling him!'

With this thought in mind, Subaru readied more explosives while noting that everyone else was already moving in on Muzan. They likely realized the same thing he did using whatever vision trick Gyomei was talking about. This was their chance and they couldn't afford to waste it. The Rifleman also moved in then, picking out at least one of the dozen targets he needed to hit while twirling his rifle to deflect the tendril attacks coming his way.

And then, it happened. Subaru saw the winds change around Muzan as he shifted his body's positioning and whipped his arms and tendrils in rapid, back and forth motions while also slamming them on the ground in quick succession. Adding to this attack was how his mouths were now blasting air out instead of sucking things in, creating a powerful windforce for the already lethal area attack. Subaru reacted purely on instinct, using his rifle to block the oncoming barrage of swings as they impacted with a terrific amount of force. The next thing he knew, everything went black.

'Is this, death,' he thought for a moment, 'I can't see and I can't hear anything. What happened, where is everyone?' He tried straining his senses for a bit, trying to hear or see even the slightest flicker of life anywhere near him. Then he heard it, a welcome voice, though with a slightly more unwelcome message. "Subaru, Subaru open your eyes," said Momiji, "you're not dead but you will be if you don't get up and move!"

"Momiji," The Matagi thought back, "what happened, where am I, where is everyone else?"

"You're still on the battlefield," said Momiji, "but you won't be for much longer if you don't wake up, NOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!" That seemed to do the trick as the Rifleman awoke with a start, sucking in a breath before wincing. His awakening brought with it a new batch of pain from a few fresh wounds that he knew he hadn't had before he blacked out.

"How long was I out," Subaru questioned to Momiji as he pushed himself up to his knees, breathing heavily as he tried to take in the situation. The entire area around Muzan had been carved up with several wrecked or slashed walls on the buildings around him and cracked up sections of the ground, some of which were upturned chunks larger than a person. "And where's everyone else?"

"You were only out for about a couple seconds," replied Momiji, "as for everyone else, they're alive but, it's not good." The Hunter quickly saw what she meant as he spotted his downed comrades one after the other. All the Hashira and Zenitsu had been flung into the walls of buildings with Sanemi even being in the window on a building's second floor. Worse, it appeared Gyomei had lost his left leg while Giyuu's right arm had been severed.

Obanai was also missing a third of his sword blade and Inosuke, who was on the ground wounded, now only had his right sword in good condition. The only person left who wasn't in a heap was Kanao, who was on her knees, bloodied and with her own broken sword. Though Subaru could tell that her injuries might be far more severe than they appeared given that she seemed incapable of moving as Muzan approached her. 'Damn it, got to move,' thought Subaru as he quickly began using a recovery breath technique, his hand trembling as he forced his arm to move and grab onto the remaining revolver in his holster.

It was more difficult at the moment to free his sidearm from its holster as his right arm had taken a cut on the back of his wrist, but if he didn't move now he'd lose another comrade. And with the madness that was still happening around them, he didn't want to lose anyone else if he could avoid it. So he steadied his breathing and raised his arm. At about the same time, Muzan was raising his own distorted blade arm to strike Kanao.

He stopped as a shot rang out and an impact was felt in his lower back right where his spine was. "You," breathed out Muzan in irritation as he turned towards Subaru, "still alive I see….oh, that might explain something." He turned all the way to face the Matagi as he continued to speak, "I was wondering how you'd been staving off the poison from my blood in your wounds, poison that even the Hashira are dying from."

"Surprised?" Coughed Subaru, "yeah your blood isn't going to cause me any problems, it's already been in my system for years thanks to that cowardly Upper Moon, Hantengu."

"Hantengu, how in the world did he…ah, so you are the son of that slayer with the Murata rifle. I knew Hantengu had been sloppy on that job, but to think he created a demon without my knowledge on accident."

"Not quite a demon," said Subaru, "not sure if he knew what he was doing, but my father retarded the transformation with wisteria incense and potted plants. You're looking at the likely one and only half demon in the entire world, at least as far as your breed of demon goes."

"That explains your left eye and the recently grown back finger," observed Muzan, noting how said eye looked slightly demonic, "but how is your blood partially blue?" Subaru tilted his head in confusion before checking himself and was more than a little surprised to see that some of his blood did indeed have blue mixed in with it. He remembered then, he'd seen this type of blood before.

"Oh this," said Subaru as he held his arm up, "probably the result of that drunk I ran into, Shuten Doji. Did you know that guy can make his own demons, because I didn't? Wound up breathing in some alcohol fumes with demonic qualities, but I didn't turn into a demon like some of the others. Guess I have your bullshit running through my system to thank for that."

"Shuten Doji," sneered Muzan, "so you have met that alcoholic bastard. Well that's unfortunate for you, because now I'll not just kill you, I'll carve a message into your corpse announcing who the true demon king is. Because once I absorb that little friend of yours, Nezuko Kamado, even the sun won't be able to touch me."

"For a guy with, if I'm figuring this right, multiple brains it's incredible how shortsighted you are," Subaru said, managing a smirk despite the pain as he stood up, "that drug Tamayo used on you wasn't the only one she made. There was at least one more, and what do you think we might be using it for?" The Demon Lord took only a couple of seconds to think about it before his face contorted into absolute rage.

"You bastards, you used it on the Kamado girl!" Snarled Muzan as the tendrils on his body raised threateningly.

"It's called a contingency plan, dumbass," remarked Subaru, "there was always a possibility we couldn't kill you tonight and if that happened, we could at least set you back to square one. So have fun looking around for another thousand years!"

"DAMN YOU ALL YOU ACCURSED DEVIANTS!" Roared Muzan, his eyes clouded over with rage as he whipped his tendrils towards Subaru. The Matagi pulled out one of his knives as his rifle had been flung somewhere during Muzan's last attack and stood ready with his Webley as well. He knew he probably wouldn't last much longer, but perhaps he'd done enough. At least, that's what he thought.

"Beneficient Radiance!" Came a very welcome voice as two flaming slashes deflected Muzan's attack and even managed to sever one of his arms. "Subaru, sorry I'm late, are you alright?"

"I should be asking you that," said the Matagi as he was now on the verge of laughing at the most recent turn of events, "you sure you should be moving right now?"

"I'll be fine," assured Tanjiro as he handed Kanao, who he'd somehow managed to grab during Muzan's moment of confusion, to a Kakushi who'd just shown up, "and could you please take care of her?"

"Y-Yes of course," said the frightened Kakushi as they took Kanao and ran off to a safer location.

"So you'e still alive, Tanjiro Kamado," said Muzan, "though you look positively awful. A horrid looking human, a half demon hunter and the Demon Lord himself. Though it's hard to tell which one of us is which right now?" He was referring to the smaller but still nasty looking red growth which was over Tanjiro's right eye, though the slayer didn't seem to be paying it too much mind.

"Muzan," said Tanjiro, his face set in grim determination, "let's finish this."

How is the fight going you ask, is it anyone's game now that Tanjiro's here or are our heroes hanging on by a thread? Either way the sun's not up yet, so our slayers have still got a struggle ahead of them. So in the meantime, feel free to leave a comment or review about what you liked/disliked or if you've got any neat ideas for future chapters. Be sure to stop in next time as Tanjiro and Subaru work to utilize the thirteenth form of Hinokami Kagura! 'Til then.