^ Chapter 52 - Paradiso ^

When the natives of Japan imagined what the western world was like, and if it was any similar or different to their own, they weren't imaging they'd see what kind of state the country of Italy was in as they approached the shore in Níngguāng's ship. The clear, starry night sky had been filled with dark, ominous clouds and an ever-present breeze that carried the stench of death and suffering along with it.

Coming into the closest port they could find, they were met by a complete ghost town, with not a single soul in sight. They didn't know if it was because it was night and everyone was asleep, or it was because of something else entirely. Things were left scattered around this way and that, like the populace had been in a hurry to escape from some kind of animal or creature. Not a single boat was there in the dock with them, which meant they had to have been taken out to sea.

"This gives me the chills...where is everyone?" Mitsuri asked quietly once she hopped down onto the dock, the others following along behind her.

"Unsure, but judging from the state of everything around us, they had to have left in a hurry." Giyū remarked while keeping his eyes peeled for the slightest commotion.

They were in completely unfamiliar territory, with the only person who would have an inkling of where they were and what to expect with them being Níngguāng herself. With her experience of the outside world because of her travels for business, she was their most important asset that they had to ensure survived at all costs.

She would be their ticket back home as well, once they had retrieved Nezuko and defeated Torres. Once everyone had disembarked from her ship, she used her crystals to moor it in place in the harbor, ensuring that it wouldn't be taken away under any circumstances. Then they entered the port city, with Níngguāng giving them tidbits of information along the way in a hushed tone so that they couldn't be easily heard if there was anyone still there.

Tanjirō licked his lips a bit so that they weren't dry any more and then looked down an alleyway to their right, seeing a few doors left completely wide open. It irked him a little bit to see everything like this, and it made his mind race to try and determine just what the cause was.

Five minutes into arriving at the small port town and entering it were they met with the sounds of the night, from crickets chirping to the wind howling down a few narrow streets. To say it was creepy would have been an understatement, and Mitsuri, still a little upset about the loss of their comrades out on the sea, was definitely feeling the pressure more than anyone. Kyōjurō sensed this, and placed a hand on her shoulder, making her jump a little bit and look back to see who it was.

"Relax, Kanroji. They knew that price, and they willingly accepted it. Like you said earlier, we have to keep moving forward." he said to reassure her, his words bringing a small smile to Mitsuri's lips.

"Thank you, Rengoku-san…" she replied, taking a deep breath before refocusing herself. "No more doubts, no more sadness, I have to be strong for everyone here. For my friends, for Shinobu, for Tanjirō-kun…"

Mitsuri ended up breaking her own concentration when her mind drifted back to the time she and Tanjirō spent together before the fight on the seas with the dreadnought unfolded, leading her to blush profusely about it.

Tanjirō was about to say something before they heard the slight creak of a door from their left, and in a flash everybody had their blades drawn in an instant, turning towards the source of the noise expecting a fight. Instead they saw a rather aged man, who had gotten a little too curious for his own good at the sight of the foreigners, was peeking out from what was most likely the doorway to his home. Surprised by their reaction speed he stumbled back a bit, and became scared at first for his life.

Almost immediately Níngguāng stepped in, raising up her other hand with a soft smile and assuring the man in perfect, fluent Italian that they weren't there to harm him. Taken aback by the woman's ability to communicate clearly with him, he shared his thoughts and the two entered a short conversation, leaving Tanjirō, the Hashira, Kanao, Zenitsu and Inosuke completely in the dark.

Inosuke grunted and muttered something about funny words under his mouth before attempting to wander off, if not for both Kanao and Zenitsu yanking him back at the same time so that they could stick together.

Níngguāng then smiled at the old man, then turned to them while waving at them to come, "Come inside. This fine gentleman has offered to give us a little explanation about what happened here."

"He is? Splendid! Thank him for his generosity, hmn!" Kyōjurō with a big smile and a cross of his arms over his chest.

They then filed inside of the man's home, finding a place to either sit or stand while waiting for Níngguāng and him to enter so that she can serve as interpreter between them and the man. Once Kanao closed the door and nodded, everyone got comfortable and sheathed their swords as a show of respect and common decency for the man letting them into his abode.

"So, can you please tell me and my friends what happened here? We just arrived and we're eager to know." Níngguāng asked the man in fluent Italian again, the gentlemen sighing and removing his head to hold it over his chest.

Without holding back, he told them of how some kind of illness befell the people of the town. It came upon them slowly at first, by chest pains and headaches, before it started to affect people's memories and the way they spoke. Those who were afraid left by boat, leaving everyone else who wanted to stay behind to experience the true terror that was unfolding.
Up until a few days ago, they thought it would eventually go away, the man said, but it became apparent that they were dealing with something out of their control when people stopped moving entirely. They appeared frozen in place, not speaking at all. Their eyes would turn dark, and they wouldn't respond to anyone or anything at all.

Even when there were no boats, some people, now terrified of the curse sweeping through the town, attempted to flee into the waters, leading to the mess they saw outside. But try as they might, they would come back because of a pull of sorts coming from the capital. It felt like they were being drawn to it.

Most left, coming unfrozen to pursue whatever unheard message they were receiving, leaving only a few of the original denizens, including the old man, behind. They were still rooted to where they stood

"So now, he's the last person that hasn't been rendered paralyzed…" Níngguāng said in a low tone, glancing down at her smoking pipe after the man finished his tale.

Tanjirō and some of the others were rendered speechless, Zenitsu was trembling lightly, and Kyōjurō and Giyū, probably the most sensible and even-keel members of the group, entered into their thoughts. All of it had to be related to Torres, it was an undeniable fact. The confusing part was figuring out what kind of sorcery or technique was cast to make those things happen to these innocent people.

"Thank him for telling us these things, but we should get moving though. We can't waste time." Giyū said, standing up first, followed quickly by Tanjirō.

"I agree with Tomioka-san. Nezuko is waiting for us, and I don't want to keep her waiting any longer. I have a really bad feeling, especially with this stench I'm smelling…" added Tanjirō, a worried expression on his face.

Níngguāng nodded and gave the man their thanks, before opening the door for them all to leave in a hurry. Wasting no time they started jogging from the man's home down the street, swords in hands ready for anything. As they neared the center of the town, where a church was the most prominent of buildings, the air suddenly turned ice cold.
They could already start to see their breath, and the air only continued to drop in temperature. It wasn't long until warning bells started going off inside of Shinobu's mind and she quickly skid to a halt, spreading her arms out wide while her haori temporarily merged with her body and turned into her butterfly wings.

With strength she could only dream of as a human, she swept them forward and created a huge gust of wind that blew away the freezing air from around them, normalizing the temperature and saving them from a fate that she and Kanao knew all too well. There was only one person who could create icy winds as freezing as those, and just the thought of them made her stomach shrivel up in disgust.

"Seems like my little welcoming gift wasn't accepted, how rude!"

Shinobu narrowed her eyes and growled a little at the voice, her teeth grinding together lightly. Tanjirō's expression soured instantly as well, as did Kanao's and Inosuke, since all four of them had met the voice's owner.

Atop the bell tower of the church, appearing out from behind the golden cross that adorned its peak was none other than the former Upper Rank Two demon himself. Dōma smiled happily at them and waved, as if he hadn't just tried to harm them with his subzero-temperature air that could freeze a human solid.

"Shut up, you bastard! And come down here so we can shred you to bits!" shouted Inosuke, shaking his fist at him with an audible snarl.

"Oh, but the view up here is amazing! But, since you asked nicely…" Dōma said with a shrug, as he walked off the church and dropped down to the ground, his smile never fading from his face.

"There's more of us than there are of him, we can take him. If we just-" Giyū started to say, his fingers tightening around his sword, before Shinobu held an arm up in front of him.

"You said it yourself, Tomioka-san. We can't waste any more time. Go."

"No way! The last time this happened you nearly-!"

"I know that, Tanjirō-kun," she said, stopping Tanjirō's outburst before glancing at him and smiling. "This is different than last time...I won't lose. I promise."

Tanjirō opened his mouth to protest again but a firm hand from Kyōjurō shut down any kind of response. They didn't have the time to argue amongst themselves, if Shinobu was going to fight Dōma so they could continue, then so be it. Mitsuri, knowing she'd probably try to do something to dissuade Shinobu, forced herself to swallow her fears for her friend and express them in a tight hug.

Surprised at first, Shinobu smiled and used an arm to hug her friend back, before they shared just a brief gaze into one another's eyes. Mitsuri then took off first, the others following right behind her off towards an alternate route that would take them away from the soon-to-be battlefield in the square.

Tanjirō made one last longing stare at Shinobu as he picked up the rear of the group, only turning away once she made eye contact with him and gave him a reassuring wink. Dōma watched them leave with the same empty smile, even waving at them as they did, before returning his focus to Shinobu and laughing.

"Look at that, alone again, Hashira-chan~! Just like last time, but now, you're the demon and I'm something else entirely!" he exclaimed cheerfully, his grating voice turning Shinobu's smile into a heavy scowl. "Would you like to pick up where we left off? I was almost done devouring you, after all."

"Kanao told me about you, after they killed you the first time. She was right." Shinobu muttered when she began to slowly sidestep to the right, Dōma doing the same in the opposite direction.

"Kanao, Kanao...oh! The girl that had the breathing style like your dead sister! I remember her now! What exactly did she say?"

"That every single word that comes out of your mouth is complete and utter bullshit. You hide that empty, soulless personality of yours behind a wall of fake emotion."

"How rude of her...I should have devoured her when I had the chance. But first, I'll play with you first."

"Trust me, this won't go the same way as last time."

Shinobu stopped walking and widened her stance, Dōma mirroring her on the opposite side of the square. He opened his hands and manifested two spheres of black sludge, which then turned into his fans that he used for fighting. With his true personality, or lack thereof, revealed for a second time he had a similar scowl on his face as Shinobu.

The air was tense, and for a brief moment the distant echo of thunder disrupted the silence. Both were daring the other to make the first move with their glares and their body language. Shinobu took a slow breath to calm herself, keeping her unrequited anger in check. She was not going to let herself suffer the same mistakes as before.

Then, like a bolt of lightning, Dōma struck first, putting Shinobu right on her heels as he assaulted her with furious blows with his fans and feet, generating his bone-chilling icy winds with practically every blow. Shinobu blocked and deflected each of his strikes with grace and precision, before dropping to her knees and propelling herself right through his right leg.

Her sheer speed and the force of her thrust blew it completely apart into a splatter of black sludge, but just as soon as he lost it, Dōma regenerated it and was able to regain his balance.

"Your tricks won't work on me this time, Hashira-chan! You only got lucky before because of all that poison in your veins, but I'm not a demon any more~!" Dōma exclaimed with a light-hearted chuckle, the Insect Hashira standing up and glaring back at him.

"That's why I came up with new ones. Kekkijutsu - Dokubari no hari chiryō." she replied back with a sinister grin.

Dōma raised an eyebrow, wondering what she meant, before dozens of miniature gashes then appeared across his skin as razor sharp spikes made of Wisteria poison skewered his body from the inside out. He coughed out some of the black sludge, caught off guard by the sudden attack, and stared at Shinobu as she held up her stinger blade.

The tip was covered in the tar-like substance before she flicked it off, still smirking evilly at him. She had managed to pierce his body dozens of times without him even being able to notice it.

"If you were hoping this would play out like the last time, you're sorely mistaken. It's my turn to play now, Dōma." Shinobu said while holding her sword by her side and using the other hand to taunt the former demon by flipping him off, a wicked smile on her lips stretched from ear to ear.

"Kekkitjutsu - Fuyusare Tsurara."

Dōma swept his right arm downward, unleashing a downpour of several razor sharp icicles that seemed to pierce Shinobu's body right through her upper torso and head. Her body then exploded into a huge cloud of dark purple butterflies that swarmed him in an instant. His vision turned to nothing but purple as he swept his fans around haphazardly, slicing many of the small insects in half, only to have them burst apart and spray his body in wisteria poison.

"Since you weren't born with the ability to feel emotion...I'll gladly help you…" Shinobu's voice whispered from the cloud of butterflies, before they suddenly all dispelled themselves.

Dōma lowered his arms, looking around left and right for any sign of the diminutive Hashira, but neither saw nor felt any sign of her. Wondering if she had used that as a distraction so that she could escape, he was quickly proven wrong when he noticed his surroundings begin to slowly melt.

He blinked and held the side of his head as his vision began to grow blurry as well, which soon led to dizziness that made him stumble around a bit. Dōma then finally spotted Shinobu standing a few meters away from him, sword in her sheath with a soft smile on her face. She was taunting him by not even having her weapon drawn, and it made him start to feel something stir inside of the pit of his stomach.

Letting go of his head and gripping his fans he charged the Insect Hashira, swiping one clean through her neck, only for her body to once again burst into a flurry of butterflies. Dōma whirled around, seeing her sitting down in a chair close to a fountain in the center of the square, still smiling at him. Again, she was decapitated, and again her body became nothing but a flurry of butterflies that fluttered away into oblivion.

Now he was beginning to feel concerned. The walls of the buildings around him were starting to melt and morph together, becoming some kind of twisted watercolor painting. The dark clouds took on a dark purple hue, and a lavender colored fog seemed to roll into the square, coming in from the streets and the closed windows.

Dōma then noticed something was stirring in the pit of his stomach, a sensation he'd never felt before. What was this? It felt like he was on fire, but he wasn't. The shivering in his fists came soon after, and he noticed his jaw muscles clench.

Was this frustration? Irritation? Anger? He didn't know for sure, but what he did know was that it was growing stronger.

"Do you feel it? That nagging, burning sensation in your gut? The trembling in your limbs?" Shinobu whispered into his ear, Dōma wrenching his head and arm back ready for her, only to find nobody there at all. "You do feel it, good...what you're feeling is the beginning of anger...an emotion I've become quite intimate with…"

A piercing headache then made Dōma drop one of his fans and clutch the side of his head, taking on the characteristic sound of a heartbeat that had incredibly deep undertones and reverberations that seemed to affect his entire body. His vision became a little more blurry, the melting buildings growing more distorted by the second, before he felt something wet against his skin.

Taking his hand back from his head, his eyes widened as his flesh began to drip and melt away, just as it had the first time when he was afflicted with the overwhelming dose of wisteria poison that had assisted in ending his life the first time. Dōma yelled, but not a soul heard his cry of desperation as he melted down into a puddle of black sludge.

With a gasp he awoke again, this time on a giant reflective lake of purple-hued water, with a giant moon present in the pitch black sky above. It was dead silent to such a degree that it truly felt as though the space he was in was devoid of all sound at all.

Dōma blinked, and Shinobu appeared a few meters away, only she wasn't smiling any more. Whispering and chattering voices started to torment Dōma's mind, growing progressively louder and louder until he covered his ears to try and make them stop.

"You took my sister from me. I suffered for years because of you, angry and resentful. I wanted to purge your existence more than anything in the world." Shinobu uttered as she stared her sister's killer dead-square in the eyes.

Dōma clenched his jaws and pressed his hands harder against his ears, but the chattering whispers only got louder in response. So overwhelming were the voices that it made him plunge his fingers right into his ear canal, desperately attempting to keep them out.

"But now...I've changed my mind. I'm not going to kill you, Dōma." Shinobu continued, a second copy of herself appearing on Dōma's left. Together they walked slowly towards him, which in turn made the pounding of his headache and the volume of the chatters intensify. "I'm going to let you suffer, until you learn what it's like to know what pain is. Listen to the voices of the innocent women you devoured, listen to every single last one of them…"

When it seemed like it couldn't get any worse, hands began to emerge from the purple lake Dōma stood on, grappling at his ankles and taking hold. He looked down, his eyes wide open with what looked like fear, and then tried to pull himself free. Their grip was too strong, and as more hands of his victims grabbed him, he began to sink into the lake. They were pulling him under, and try as he might, he could not shake them off.

A third and fourth Shinobu clone appeared beside the original and the second, standing around Dōma to watch him in glee. Taking his fingers out of his bloody ears, he attempted to reach for Shinobu, but the hands yanked him harder, dragging him down to his shoulders, with just his head and right arm sticking up out of the lake.

When he tried to scream again, not a sound came out of his mouth when Shinobu's stinger sword was driven straight through his tongue and down his throat. He choked, and as his head finally vanished under the water, the liquid pouring down his wide open mouth, his hand twitched until it too disappeared.
The whispers stopped, the thumping ceased, and silence then reigned again supreme.

"Kekkijutsu...Fuji - Mugen ni saku…" murmured Shinobu as she stood before Dōma, the former demon sitting on his knees with his head pointed upward at the cloudy skies.

As soon as she had cast her Blood Demon Art, Dōma had been rendered completely immobile thanks to the wisteria poison present in his body. His eyes had glossed over and his mouth hung ajar, making him look like he was in a trance.

The truth was that he was in a trance, one that not even he could break himself out of. Because Shinobu spent a lot of time with Tamayo, working together side by side to create the drug that would assist in Muzan's downfall, she learned a great many new things from the doctor that furthered her own knowledge. Now that she was a demon who had wisteria poison for blood and full control over said blood, in her spare time while on their way to Europe, Shinobu had been busy. She had become a master of her own body, and with it can the development of her own variety of Blood Demon Arts, one of which Dōma had fallen victim to.

Rather than a standard run of the mill poison, she had administered a special variety, one exclusively tailored to counteract his changed physiology and his ability to nullify poisons. This drug was full of a self-made, internally generated hallucinogen that attacked the former demon's senses, being so aggressive that it left anyone afflicted with it completely incapable of recognizing what's happened to them until it was far too late. And as a contingency, the poison worked like a virus, mutating itself over and over again at an astounding rate. Even if Dōma was able to recognize that he had been poisoned, his hopes of nullifying it like he had the many previous times before during their first fight were zero.

"And now, for the cherry on top…" Shinobu thought when, slowly but surely, blemishes were opened up in his body, budding wisteria flowers protruding out of them and blooming.

They grew out of his opened mouth as well as his nostrils, until his entire body, as well as the surrounding cobblestone ground around him, was populated by an extensive colony of Wisteria flowers.

Using his body as a vessel, these mutant Wisteria flowers would endlessly supply the hallucinogenic poison that had infected the cells of his body. He would remain there, trapped, existing in the gap between life and death, for as long as the Earth would exist.

"This should be a fitting punishment for someone like you…" murmured Shinobu under her breath before swiftly turning around and taking off, hoping to catch up to Tanjirō and the others as soon as possible.

Thanks to her enhanced agility it didn't take as long as she thought to reach them, and with the group now firmly out of the town and on the road heading towards the capital, they had nothing left in their way. It was just Torres now.

When they entered the city of Rome, it was a ghost town in an entirely different sense of the word. The entire city was silent, with just the wind and any rodents they happened across the only things making noise. However the city itself wasn't empty. The denizens were still there.

"So this is what that man meant…" Mitsuri said softly as they carefully made their way through a crowd of people frozen in place, mouths slightly open and eyes wide. She lightly touched a woman on the cheek and she didn't even respond at all, not even with the slightest flinch. "This is really, really creepy…"

"Look, they're all looking the same way as well." Kyōjurō remarked.

Tanjirō looked from left to right at the people around him, as did Giyū and the others, where they quickly noticed what the Flame Hashira had pointed out was true. Everyone they saw, man, woman, child, all of them were staring blankly ahead towards a central point somewhere up ahead in the city. Inosuke grunted and took to a building on his left, aggressively climbing up the face so that he could get a better view of the area, and pointed ahead in that direction.

"They're all looking at this big dome place! That way!" he shouted down to everyone, Níngguāng responding by forming a crystal platform beneath her feet that carried her up into the air.

Once she was level with the rooftops, she could clearly see what the boar head-wearing slayer was pointing at and frowned. Her suspicions had been proven, and when she lowered herself back down to the street she was met by the expectant stares of everyone.

"What he means is they're looking to the Vatican, the beating heart of the Roman Catholic religion." Níngguāng explained, with Zenitsu awkwardly raising his hand. "Yes, what is it?"

"Um...what exactly is the Vatican?"

"The Vatican is easily the most well known and famous of churches in the world and head of the Roman Catholic Religion, led by the Pope and the Holy See."

"And that is where Torres would be, along with-"

"Nezuko…" Tanjirō said, his jaw clenching. "Let's go."

Following Inosuke's example and to avoid bumping into anyone down below, they took to the rooftops of Rome, leaping from one to the next on their way towards the desolate Vatican. As they got closer, all of them started to feel a sort of weight start to come down onto their shoulders from something they couldn't quite figure out what it was.

They felt a sort of pulse as well, as if something was indeed trying to call out to them, which matched the description given by the old man back in the port town. Tanjirō grunted a bit at a slight migraine that beset him, with both Shinobu and Mitsuri asking if he was okay from, which he brushed off.

"We're nearly there, Nezuko! We're gonna save you!" he thought, a surge of determination causing him to end up at the front of the pack.

Kyōjurō fed off his determination and grinned ear to ear, laughing optimistically as he followed behind him step for step. The infectious spread of his determination reached everyone else quickly, leading to them making it to the Vatican in record time. Approaching the entrance though threatened to put a hamper on that determination from the sight of the mauled bodies of Swiss Guardsmen and other individuals strewn about the grounds of the city state.

Making their way inside, they guessed the carnage had been caused by none other than Dōma himself, when he had first arrived with Torres. Shinobu closed her eyes and apologized to those they crossed, hoping that whatever laid for them in the next life would be better.

The closer they got to the source of the pulse, the stronger it got, preying on their minds and giving them all some slight headaches that was a mild inconvenience to them at best. Even for demons like Tanjirō, Shinobu and Mitsuri, they were still affected by the sensation. Finally though, they reached their destination, and were rendered speechless.

St. Peter's Square had been transformed by Torres' machinations, with the ground now covered with neon blue grass and brightly glowing blue flowers that gave off an alien sort of miasma. The atmosphere was heavy, and the stench Tanjirō had first smelled back in the port city was at its strongest. And in the center of it all, next to the ancient Egyptian obelisk adorned with a cross, was Torres.

Most shocking of all though was Nezuko, who was bound near the base of the obelisk by a mess of plant roots that had sprouted out of the ground, with more of the blue flowers growing out of them.

Their arrival did not go unnoticed however, for Torres lifted his head up somewhat from a copy of the Bible he was reading from, and he turned toward their direction. He smiled, closing the book with his hand and holding it behind his back as he bowed.

"I see that you were all able to make it, I'm honored to have you all in my presence." Torres said while they filed out into the square, forming a half-circle around him.

"Nezuko! Nezuko, can you hear me?! Nezuko!" shouted Tanjirō to try and get his sister's attention, but to no avail.

She was seemingly unconscious, but upon closer inspection, it was something far worse. Tiny roots that had split off from the main ones wrapped around her body he crawled up her neck and dug themselves into her skin, connecting her to the plant itself. Blue-colored tears were dripping down her cheeks from her closed eyes, and whenever she breathed, that's when they felt the pulse again.

"What did you do to my sister…" snarled Tanjirō, his anger flaring up and causing the flowers around his feet to burn. "Answer me!"

"Why don't all of you take a seat? I'm sure the journey from Japan was a long and strenuous one, so please...I insist!"

A puddle of sludge formed under the feet of every single person there, and before they could react, tendrils latched onto each of their limbs and pulled them down into a sitting position, where they then formed into the shape of a chair. Tanjirō snarled, pulling and tugging with all his might to try and break free, but even his efforts were a failure. Neither Mitsuri nor Shinobu could free themselves either, and the others were just as hopeless.

The only person to remain calm despite the circumstances was Níngguāng, who remained perfectly still where she sat despite being bound like the rest of the group. She still glared at Torres with fiery hatred in her gaze, her hands balled into fists.

"There we are, was that so difficult? I'm sure all of you were looking forward to resting your weary limbs, anyways." Torres said with a light chuckle, before he brought his Bible back around and opened it, reading a few lines from it. "I honestly didn't expect you to bring them all the way here, Miss Níngguāng. Truly, you surprised me! I can count the number of people who have managed to do that on one hand."

Níngguāng grinded her teeth together and finally began to tug a bit on her restraints, the former Cardinal lifting his eyes up to look her dead in the eyes while a creeping realization began to creep up everyone's backs.

"Oh, and don't try to form any of your crystals, my dear. I'll pierce your skull before you could even be able to touch me. I thought you were smarter than this too, I fully expected you to take the money and pull through on our contract." Torres said, a slight smirk appearing as he watched the heads of the slayers begin to turn towards the Chinese businesswoman.

"Níngguāng-san...you...you made a deal? With him?" asked Shinobu in a low tone, her tone as toxic as her poison.

"Oh, she did! Where she comes from, her people value contracts very dearly. I heard that breaking a contract could cost one's entire reputation...it would appear you don't value the beliefs of your people as much as I thought."

"You better spill what you were paid to do. Now."

Giyū was staring holes right through the side of her head, and she could feel not only his gaze, but the gazes of the others who had trusted her. She made eye contact with them all and sighed, hanging her head enough that some strands of her white hair fell down over her face.

"It's true...he approached me while you were fighting Muzan's forces to kill you once you emerged...he paid me with enough funds to rebuild my Jade Chamber without impacting my own personal fortune at all…" she murmured, before she whipped her head back up and glared at him while thrashing in her chair again. "But I took that money and threw it away! You talk of compassion as if you were a person of divine faith, but all you seek to do is cause pain and suffering! Anybody in their right mind could see it! Ubuyashiki and his family are true in what they say, not you! You...you're just a monster…你他媽的下地獄!"

Torres merely stared blankly at her before shrugging and flicking his wrist. Níngguāng then suddenly gasped as a thin tendril pierced through her back and out her chest, cutting right through her heart in the blink of an eye. Tanjirō eyes widened, Shinobu, Mitsuri and Kanao gasped, and the other male slayers were visibly shocked when Torres executed the businesswoman without so much as a second thought.

Blood dripped out from Níngguāng's lip as he wheezed, her qipao quickly getting stained red with blood before she slumped over and ceased any sort of movement. Right then, they took her words to be true. Before them stood a man who claimed to be a devotee to the path of righteousness, a student of the teachings of the Lord, but he was just another killer who played by his own rules.

No person in their right mind could claim themselves to be a son of virtue and good faith when they take the life of another person so easily and without remorse. It made Tanjirō, and he snarled as he tried with renewed vigor to break free. That's when a light tremble resonated from Nezuko and the plant roots she was connected with, a light groan escaping her lips.

"Ahhh...Salvation is upon us." spoke Torres as he put the Bible away and turned his back on them, facing Nezuko and the obelisk as he raised his arms out to the side. "Almost two thousand years in the making...it's finally time."

"What are you going to do?! Why go through all of this trouble?! Siding with Muzan! Reviving Dōma!? Why!" Tanjirō shouted at the top of his lungs, his muscles rippling as he grunted and pushed against his restraints.

"Why, you may ask? The answer is simple. Salvation shall be Humanity's way of evolution. We shall shed the sins of our past, and become something new, something pure." he replied, glancing over his shoulder.

"The sins of what? The sins of the few? The many?" Shinobu asked in a deadly serious tone.

"The sins of all. Can you tell me what's going on right now, as we speak?"

"What do you mean?" Giyū questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"You poor, sheltered fools...you were so preoccupied with your quest to kill that mongrel Kibutsuji, that you haven't been able to grasp the bigger picture. The world is at war, my friends." Torres revealed, turning around to face them while shaking his head disdainfully. "A conflict involving the countries of Europe, the United States, the Ottoman Empire, Czarist Russia...even your own home of Imperial Japan. All of them are involved in the fighting...it's known as the Great War, or quite aptly the 'war to end all wars'."

Torres went on to give them chilling details of what had been occurring there, in his home, of Europe. Death and destruction had spread across the land, from nation to nation, town to town. Battle lines had been drawn, trenches were dug, and bodies were piling up. Every single kind of nightmare that humanity could dream up had been brought to life.

From firearms, to great, mechanical beasts that were impervious to any attack, all the way to chemical agents that could render a normal person immobile with dozens of painful, unsightly blisters. Even the dreadnought he knew they had fought was one of the war machines developed and being used in this so-called Great War, and to hear the details was enough to make their stomachs turn.

"In one battle alone, in the vicinity of the Somme River, over one million soldiers were casualties or lost to the fighting...one million lives." Torres said while holding up a singular finger, shaking it a few times. "One million lives were sacrificed for the sake of how many? Five million lives? Ten million lives? And for what? To then send them into battle to prolong the suffering? This is by no means Humanity's only war. I have lived for nearly two thousand years! I have bore witness to pain and suffering across generations! All of it has proven that Humanity is rotten and corrupted, and must be brought to Salvation before Almighty God!"

"The faults of our species is what makes us who we are! We are humans! We have just as much potential for good as we do for bad! Why can you only see the bad?!" Kyōjurō demanded. Even the Flame Hashira himself was beginning to lose his temper with the man, and it showed in his body language and expression. "You cannot blame the actions of the few for the reactions of the many!"

"Humanity has had beyond enough chances to redeem itself...the time has come. Knowing this, my friends, I seek not a new conflict, but a restoration of balance in God's name. And it has been done with reason, from beginning to end. Humanity will be reborn, as foretold in the Prophecy of Babel, and once again take its rightful place among the stars with Him."

With that proclamation, Torres then raised his hands up and the ground trembled beneath him. Roots grew from earth at the base of the obelisk and shot forward, piercing his back at his shoulder blades and his lower abdomen. He grunted, but didn't feel any sort of pain as the blue flowers spread throughout the square began to glow more intensely.

"W-What's happening?" asked Mitsuri frantically as the ground continued to rumble, before finally the earth itself opened up as giant tree roots surged upward. overtaking it and obscuring Nezuko from Tanjirō's view.

"Nezukooo!" he shouted as the roots grew higher and higher into the air, flower bulbs of various sizes sprouting from it and blooming before it finally ceased growing in height. Like a skyscraper, it dominated the city of Rome, dwarfing every single building in sight.

Its giant roots emerged in other parts of the square, destroying some of the architecture surrounding St. Peter's Square, and very nearly crushing the group of slayers. Torres looked skyward as the roots embedded into his back lifted him up and began to carry him towards the top of the titanic plant, where one giant flower bud had blossomed, unfurling into a huge, blue flower that cast its shadow over the entire Vatican proper. The miasma it released turned the sky a dark shade of blue, and the pulsing intensified to a steady tremor.

"This world shall know Salvation…God's Will dictates it..." whispered Torres to himself as he closed his eyes, focusing his will through the giant flower and its roots out across the globe.

Worldwide, in the areas where he and his followers had spread the 'seeds', blue flowers began to grow en masse, before massive copies of the giant flower in the Vatican sprouted as well. In Japan, the Emperor was leisurely resting in his chambers when he succumbed to Torres' will, becoming a casualty when from his body sprouted the roots that would form one of the monumental signal flowers.

Kiriya and his entourage, who had remained in Tokyo to wait for the triumphant return of their allies, witnessed the rapid growth of the monstrously-sized plant and gazed at it in horror. Had they failed?

Torres reached the peak of the giant flower and he opened his eyes, gazing one last time at the cloudy skies before crossing his arms over and allowing himself to be drawn into the plant. As he descended, he began to chant in fluent Latin, inciting the invocation of the ceremony he had spent nearly his entire life preparing for. Now was the time it all came to fruition. God's Salvation had arrived.

"Rex, Rex tremendae majestatis, qui salvandos savas gratis…'' he said at first, the central petals opening up to reveal a pitch black maw within. As he descended into darkness, the last few words echoed out to set the final act into motion. "Salve me, fons pietatis."

The petals swallowed up Torres, and a moment of silence persisted following his disappearance. Suddenly a huge rumble made the earthquake around the giant flower, before a massive shockwave caused the clouds in the air to be pushed back almost instantly to reveal the clear night sky and the brightly shining moon above.

Then came the low, barely audible hum that resonated deep within the core of the huge flower. Like a nagging sensation in the back of their heads, it made Tanjirō grind his teeth in agony. The others felt the same kind of pain in their heads, and they could hardly do anything to relieve themselves of this pain.

From every flower that had sprouted in the world came this hum, and it drew everybody's attention with such a degree that the world came to practically a stand still.

"You can feel the pain and suffering of the people, right?"

"I...can…"

"You know what you must do then, yes? Their pain, their suffering, their sins...all of it can be erased. The world can become a better place."

"A...better place…?"

"Yes…Paradiso...a paradise."

"But...what about Onee-san…? My friends…?"

"They will be safe, all of them. But in order to ensure that, you must let them hear you. Let them hear your voice. Let them hear the voice of an Angel."

The hum continued to persist, before slowly, starting off softly, came a voice from within the flower that breached the wall of silence. It could be heard everywhere and anywhere at once, across the globe. It only took Tanjirō a second to realize who it was, and he wrenched his head back in shock to look up at the flower.

"Nezuko?!" he stammered, the voice of his sister singing in such a heavenly manner blowing him away.

"What is it...that she's singing…? This headache...it won't go away…!" Zenitsu said, squirming over and over in his seat.

The more that Nezuko sang in that angelic tone, the greater the intensity of the hum, with it penetrating every expanse of their mind and reaching deep into the very core of their being. Their vision became blurry, before the world then suddenly turned black and they were immediately floating in a black space. A sense of direction was gone, there was no up or down. There was nothing, until one by one, dozens of people began to blink into existence, like stars in the night sky.

Tanjirō's eyes widened as the number kept growing exponentially, first by the hundred, then by the thousands, until it seemed like they were among a literal galaxy of interconnected consciousness linked together like they were in some sort of massive neural network.

"This is what the Prophecy of Babel has foretold. The evolution of Mankind...the unification of the mind, body, and soul into one." Torres thought, his astral consciousness appearing in the center of the network, with Nezuko right there next to him. His words penetrated their own thoughts as if he were standing right there next to him, even when he was so far away. "Together, as one single, great being, we will fulfill the wishes of our ancestors and take our rightful place with God in Heaven. There will be no more strife, no more wars, no more hunger...we will be freed from the shackles of our fleeting, mortal lives, and become eternal as He is."

Tanjirō grit his teeth and grunted in pain as hundreds of thousands of thoughts from different people of different nations connected with his own, producing such a head-splitting headache he thought he was going to pass out. Shinobu, Mitsuri, Kyōjurō and Giyū. Kanao and Zenitsu, and the snarling Inosuke. All of them could hear one another's thoughts, and feel each other's emotions. The rapidly growing and expanding neural network of interconnected minds became stronger and stronger by the second, spurred on by Nezuko's angelic singing of a mixture of Latin and a language none of them had ever heard of before. In reality, the populace of the world was at a complete and utter standstill just like the people of Rome.

Soldiers on the front lines and in the trenches of Europe had ceased all fighting, dropping their weapons and ceasing any violence. Tanks stopped, ships were halted, the artillery shells stopped falling. The battlefields that had consumed Europe were now silent, devoid of life.

In the Vatican, Tanjirō had stopped struggling entirely and sat there motionless with the same empty, emotionless gaze that the rest of the group had gotten. Inosuke was silent, which was a rarity for him, even though it was against his will. After travelling halfway around the globe, losing some of their closest comrades along the way, all of it had been for naught. For all of their might as swordsmen adept at killing demons, even they could not withstand the might of Salvation.

In unison, the population of Earth all turned to face the giant progenitor flowers, and in a matter of moments their eyes all turned dark as night. Tears of black slowly streaked down their cheeks and without an ounce of willpower, they were left utterly helpless, unable to resist.

Billions of minds and souls, unified into one collective, singular consciousness. That was the goal of Salvation, and in just a matter of minutes, it turned from being just a thought into actuality.

When Nezuko finally stopped singing, she gazed out from the center of the galaxy of minds, looking around in awe of what she was able to achieve. The voices she could hear, the suffering she could feel from the Great War, all of it had now vanished. There was nothing left to hear but peace and serenity.

"I...I did all of this...

"We are all now one. Humanity's Salvation...it is now well and truly complete. let our voices resonate together for all of eternity." Torres said through his thoughts, smiling in victory. His dream had come to life. He could finally rest, after nearly two thousand years of arduous planning and work to set the pieces in motion.

Just as the people who constructed the Tower of Babel had one language and one religion, they too were now together. There was no more distinction. The term "Humanity" and the species name "Homosapien" were synonymous.

One mind.

One body.

One soul.

One human.

A/N *Dramatic music Intensifies*

Leave a favorite and a follow if you have not already, and please also give a review telling me what you thought! Until the next chapter! ALSO 500,000+ WORDS BABY LESGOOOO.

As a clarification, if you are seeking one if what I wrote did not make sense, what Torres sought was a unification of the human species as a whole into one collective being and conciousness. This is NOT some carbon copy of the Naruto Shippuden stuff, even though it may seem like it. The symbolism I was aiming for was, like I wrote, the myth surrounding the Tower of Babel.

In short, the myth of the Tower of Babel involves a united humanity speaking one language, after surviving the Great Flood, come together to try and build a tower in order to reach Heaven. God, seeing this, jumbles up their speech, making it so that they cannot understand one another, before spreading them out throughout the globe.

What I wrote was also inspired by the final episode of the Anime "Macross Delta", part of the Macross franchise (Pretty decent show, but Frontier was better).

Translation(s):

Kekkijutsu - Dokubari no hari chiryō

- Blood Demon Art - Poison Needle Acupuncture

Kekkitjutsu - Fuyusare Tsurara

- Blood Demon Art - Wintry Icicles

Kekkijutsu - Fuji - Mugen ni saku

- Blood Demon Art - Wisteria Flower - Infinite Blooming

你他媽的下地獄

- "You fucking go to hell!" in Chinese