^ Chapter 54 - Inferno ^
"You little power up and costume change still won't change what is unchangeable. I beseech you, Tanjirō, give up this fruitless quarrel. This shall be your final chance that I will be willing to offer."
Torres held a hand out to Tanjirō, offering him one final out. One last chance before there would be nothing but conflict between the two of them. Tanjirō merely lifted his head up towards Torres as outlines of his eyes made of flames appeared over his blindfold. He flipped his sword around once, before couching down and taking one slow breath. The flames that comprised his wings brightened a bit with the extra oxygen in his lungs, before he then launched himself up with explosive force.
Torres frowned and dropped his hand as a second, smaller ring formed behind the first at a different angle, mimicking the appearance of a Throne from Christian angelology. Loud clangs filled the chamber as blade struck hardened flesh and metal, the two airborne combatants flying from one corner of the chamber to the other. The older man laughed as he batted aside his younger opponent with one of his wings, hurling him out through the hole his terrific display of newfound strength had created.
Down Tanjirō fell until his flaming wings lifted him up just in time to avoid another barrage of golden fireballs flung at him by Torres. Returning to the giant plant he slammed his feet into one of the man's rings, pushing him down towards the floor of the chamber and causing him to lose some altitude. Closing the distance he unsheathed Yoriichi's sword and sliced clean through the rings protecting him, putting Torres on the defense as he attacked him over and over again.
"Why can't you just give up…!" Torres bellowed with a snarl after Yoriichi's sword slashed through his abdomen, burning him and forcing him back another few steps.
"Set your heart ablaze. No Wavering." thought Tanjirō to himself as he charged Torres yet again, his swords two raging infernos.
Torres formed a cross-tipped staff that he used to deflect his blades, while both his wings and whips that grew from his body independently attacked him from every kind of conceivable angle. He grinded his teeth together after sustaining a few glancing blows here and there, but he was quick to heal them and block other attacks.
"Just like Muzan was, Torres doesn't have a set attack pattern or style. If you start thinking he has a fixed form, he'll attack you in an unexpected way." Tanjirō told himself as he rolled beneath Torres' staff and slammed his foot into the ground, rearing back his right arm as he glared at his enemy. "Hi no kokyū: Enbu. Retsujitsu Kōkyō. Kasha."
Stringing all three techniques together along with his inhuman speed, his flaming swords slashed clean through Torres' body with ease and consumed his black, tar-like blood and fluids in his righteous flames. He retaliated by shooting off dozens of his feathers like projectiles and pushed Tanjirō back, though failing to land any of them on the youth when he protected himself with razor-sharp sword movements with both blades.
Reassured in his inherited memories of the techniques and how they were connected like the stages of an intricate dance, Tanjirō nodded confidently to himself at his ability. He was going to link all of them as they were created and produce the thirteenth form that Yoriichi created that nearly ended Muzan's life.
He still wasn't sure how he was going to end Torres' life, but that wasn't going to stop him from trying with all his might. One way or another, one of them was going to walk away alive, and the other would be dead on the ground. And he wasn't going to allow himself to be the latter.
"You are proving to be more of a challenge than Muzan, I'll give you that, young Tanjirō. And with those horns and that fire...you truly do remind me of a demon straight out of hell itself." Torres said as he tapped to butt of his staff against the ground, the scorching cuts left in his body sealing themselves back up.
"I'd gladly take being a demon more than some kind of monster like you." fired back Tanjirō with almost no emotion at all in his tone.
Torres narrowed his eyes, none too pleased with the slayer's quip, before his vision then suddenly flickered a little and he imagined Tanjirō as someone he never met before. It was a man with similar hair, and the same kind of earrings as Tanjirō.
"What is this...are these the memories of that mongrel? Who was he, and why does it make my skin crawl?" Torres thought.
"Let's finish this, Torres."
"I couldn't agree more…"
Tanjirō gasped as black sludge bubbled to life at his feet and consumed him, hurling him out from the giant flower and down towards the city of Rome below. The huge blob he was trapped in smashed through the Papal Palace, letting him go clear out through the other end of the building and skip off the earth into the city outside.
Growling as he pushed himself up out of the last impact crater he made, he quickly remembered the trapped innocents standing all around him. Before he could move them to safety however Torres came soaring down from on high like an angel of death and fired a storm of feather blades and golden fireballs from three concentric rings around him.
Ducking and rolling to avoid being hit, Tanjirō bit his tongue as dozens of innocent people were struck down and killed while trapped still in the interconnected human neural network, dying on the spot. Running up and along the wall of a nearby building he pushed with both legs up into the air, shattering the stone and windows behind him, before letting his wings carry him up to Torres.
Exchanging blows once again, Tanjirō switched gears on Torres and strung together two of Moon Breathing's most powerful techniques back to back. The swarm of chaotic blades he produced with his two swords hacked through Torres' rings and knocked him out of the air yet again.
He followed him down through a building he crashed through and nearly slammed both of his feet into Torres if he hadn't deformed as a blob and formed himself to the right. Throwing his arm out he attacked with dozens of whips from both his body and the puddle of sludge that acted as his base.
"Tsuki no kokyū, Roku no kata: Tokoyo Kogetsu - Muken!" shouted Tanjirō. A storm of furious chaotic blades from both of his swords overwhelmed Torres' attack and tore the building down around them.
"Fool! You're doing nothing but prolonging the inevitable!" Torres bellowed back as he snaked his way through the onslaught and grasped Tanjirō by the throat, lifting him clear up off the ground.
Tanjirō was quick to cut off Torres' arm and free himself, but the man brought his leg around and kicked him in the gut a split second later. Out onto the street through another wall he went, coughing out some blood as every single rib had broken from the blow. He stood up on his feet and wiped his lips clean once his ribs healed and Torres walked calmly out of the building they were just in.
He glared at Tanjirō before a dozen tentacles shot out from his back and pierced through the backs of an even amount of frozen denizens around them. Tanjirō stood there appalled as Torres then yanked the people he had caught into himself and devoured them instantly, using their sustenance as a means to create a giant many-eyed ring in the air that he aimed toward the sky.
"May judgement purge you from this land!" Torres laughed as the ring ignited itself and flew high up into the sky, higher than the giant progenitor flower and glowed brightly like a star.
It then began to rapidly rotate, spinning faster and faster as it sucked in more of the surrounding air to itself. Dark storm clouds soon formed and followed the circular motion of the ring before orange lightning began to crackle and lance across the sky. Shrieking winds and echoing thunder soon followed, before the city of Rome was then assaulted by dozens of the orange lightning bolts that could shatter entire buildings instantly. Anyone caught within the bolts were vaporized instantly, or if they were lucky enough to not be close to one were crushed by debris from collapsing buildings or pieces of Rome's intricate roadways.
Tanjirō's expression was twisted in horror when giant fireballs then emerged from the unholy storm and struck in various places across Rome, detonating in huge, all-consuming spheres of hell fire that upturned the streets, flattened buildings, and shook the earth with such intensity it felt as though the world was ending.
"You're going to kill everyone here! Stop it, all of this!" shouted Tanjirō at the top of his lungs over the whipping winds, breaking his emotionless façade in the face of the unspeakable horrors occurring around him.
"You don't see it, don't you?! This is all your doing, Tanjirō! Your actions against Salvation are beginning unneeded suffering to the innocent masses!" Torres responded, smiling wickedly with fire in his eyes.
"Torres! You've lost your mind!"
"I am as sane as ever, young one. You, Tanjirō, are a slave to history. Even after all that has happened, you continue to fight against humanity's destiny! You, solely, are responsible for this."
Tanjirō snarled and entered his unfeeling state once more, taking a wide-legged stance as Torres pointed his cross-shaped staff back at him in response. As the city of Rome was transformed into a literal hell scape, they once again began their fight that took them from the streets, to the buildings, and to the rooftops and sky.
Back and forth they traded blows, with Tanjirō receiving a few cuts and bruises from Torres that he couldn't heal, which made him only fight harder against the former Cardinal. He unleashed the techniques of the Sun Breathing again, stringing together more of Yoriichi's techniques.
"Hi no kokyū: Nichiun no Ryū Kaburimai! Hi no kokyū: Kasha!" growled Tanjirō after successfully connecting six of the twelve Sun Breathing techniques that ended with the pair of fighters smashing through another building right as another meteoric fireball crash-landed into the city.
Another devastating explosion shook the land, and it finally reached a breaking point as the earth began to crack and bubble, the heat from the flames and explosions causing the rock and stone to turn to lava. Pooling together into massive puddles all around the city, they contributed to the total, utter structural collapse of the city.
Multiple sections of the city caved in on themselves, with plumes of fire and molten stone and concrete shooting upward high into the sky as a result of the collapses. The fireballs eventually stopped raining down, but the perpetual orange lightning strikes kept coming. Their glow illuminated Tanjirō and Torres as they continued to grapple with one another, the devastation around them creeping and eating away at the former's heart with each passing second. He kept a firm grip on himself though, and kept his focus solely on Torres. He had to stop him, or the nightmare would never end.
"Focus Tanjirō, focus. Do not think about anything else except this second." Tanjirō thought after tanking a fierce blow by Torres' wings, the right sleeve of his Iwami Kagura outfit being shredded in the process. He had suffered more cuts and gashes that he couldn't heal, but he used that to his advantage to use his Iron Blood Armor. "One second. Connect the seconds. Repeat every second until he doesn't move anymore."
Tanjirō tore the rest of his tattered right sleeve off and clamped his teeth down onto the handle of his sword, biting down so harshly that the blade stayed crimson, before holding Yoriichi's sword with both hands.
Smirking at him Torres twirled his staff with expert skill in one hand and manifested a smaller set of three concentric rings above his right shoulder. The unblinking eyes all stared at Tanjirō, before the miniature Throne angel then screeched and flew at him after becoming engulfed in golden fire.
He spun through the air and sliced through the creature with his sword, killing it, before assaulting Torres again with an even larger string of Sun Breathing techniques. Waltz, Azure Heaven, Shining Ray of Grace, Sunflower Lance, Fire Chariot, Soaring Flame Haze, Parhelion Rainbow, and Bone Burning Sun. Their battlefield became as much of an inferno as the city around them, taking them further and further across the now hellish landscape.
"I have clawed my way to where I am today, for nearly two thousand years! I will not allow you to get in the way of that!" shouted Torres as he backhanded Tanjirō across the jaw and swept his wing around to bifurcate him. Tanjirō barely managed to deflect it with his sword but still suffered a cut across his gut. "I will bury you so completely, the Earth will turn over a thousand times before your broken body is dug up."
"Eight...I got eight...four more! Just four more!" Tanjirō thought confidently after landing the final blow, destroying Torres' staff and blowing him back clear off his feet.
"Why is it so difficult to kill one insignificant pest...he cannot kill me, and I can kill him. He has to begin tiring at some point!" Torres thought with a snarl as he picked himself back up, reforming his staff. Noticing that it took just a few seconds longer than normal, he glanced at his arm and his eyes widened at the slightest traces of crystals growing within his own cells. "No...this cannot be. How can it be that my body is calcifying? My body should be immortal. There has to be a reason, something I overlooked, something I didn't account for."
"So now you finally realize it...took you long enough…"
Torres gasped at the voice speaking directly to him in his mind, loud and clear amongst the connected thoughts and emotions of the billions of people linked to him. In an instant he was surrounded by darkness within the deeper recess of his mind, separated from the rest of the minds joined to him. A chill ran down his spine as a figure appeared behind him, leading the priest to turn his head and stared right into Muzan's plum red eyes.
"What are you talking about, mongrel? Realize what?" Torres questioned, a second figure soon forming from the darkness on his other side with a tiny laugh.
"To think I'd find myself actually agreeing with you...but yes, it took him long enough." said Tamayo as she walked around the cardinal, joining Muzan on his left side as she had the last night she was with him. Former bitter enemies, standing shoulder to shoulder against an even greater evil.
"Both of you, you absorbed her, and I assimilated you. How is it that you can be here now?"
"How else? We're part of you, just like all of the other people you've linked your mind with. Naturally we're included in that equation."
"Get on with it. Why should I be listening to the two of-"
"Because you're dying, imbecile."
Muzan's quip shut Torres up almost immediately, the look of surprise that bloomed soon after on his face drawing out Tamayo's sinister side as she smiled at him with her fangs fully grown.
Even Muzan couldn't help but smile at him and share a chuckle with Tamayo, the former demon lord of Japan relishing in Torres' confusion. They tempted him to gaze into their shared memories, to see what Muzan had already seen during their time together with one another.
Finding himself begrudgingly taking their advice and digging deep into his memories, the ones he inherited from them. As the fog cleared, he gazed into an unfamiliar location, a laboratory where within his sight he could see both Yushirō and Shinobu working diligently together. The view was from Tamayo's perspective, and as she approached Shinobu back when she was a human, the Hashira turned to smile at her.
"Let's try creating a hybrid drug. We should proceed forward based on the presumption that the drug will decompose. The first effect should be turning him back into a human. And if that doesn't work, we should create something with the remaining drug that will have a stronger effect."
"And coupled with what I created for him, then that would mean if it works, we can age Muzan by fifty years per minute?" Tamayo asked Shinobu, Torres' eyes widening as the reality of what he was seeing finally hit him.
"Yes, and with that on our side...we will finally be able to beat him."
Torres stopped the memory and gripped the side of his head, stumbling a little bit when the weight of what was true piled ever more on his shoulders. Muzan crossed his arms and sneered while Tamayo's vile expression persisted. Because Tamayo had injected the drug into Muzan's system, by the process of transfer, when Torres had assimilated Muzan into his being, the drug too was assimilated.
This entire time he had been aging that drastically without him even noticing. Torres took a deeper look at his fight with Tanjirō up until then while he was in the middle of it in the real world, and he started noticing details he had previously overlooked. His blows had become less and less accurate, and the time it was taking to heal up the cuts he took also increased.
It was the answer he was seeking. He had been continuously aging right under his nose, his power being chipped away. Even after achieving his life long goal of Salvation, something had arisen completely out of his calculations to stop him.
"It was fourteen, nearly fifteen days ago that I assimilated Muzan. Fourteen days...which means that I have aged by more than one million years!" Torres realized, a shiver running up and down through his body. He blinked a little when he felt another sensation appear in his body, and with a hand on his chest he was shocked to feel the slightest hint of a heartbeat.
"Feels weird, doesn't it? To be turning back into a human? And to think that could have happened to me, but thanks to you, I get to enjoy watching you suffer through it." Muzan mused to himself and Tamayo, the vile demon chuckling again to himself before glancing at his female opposite. "Even with all of that strength and self-righteousness you boasted about, even with you succeeding, you still managed to overlook something so simple. It was even in your fingertips once you absorbed me. Who's the pathetic one now, Torres?"
"Silence! You are part of me! Your consciousness belongs to me, the both of you! Neither of you have the room to talk!" barked Torres at Muzan and Tamayo, who stood their ground against him.
"Even in a state like this, you still have that vile tongue of yours, Muzan..." Tamayo said slyly while glancing up at the demon, who looked back down at her.
"You're not much different, Tamayo."
"I suppose so...it must be one of the only things left over from your horrendous influence over me."
Torres snarled when Tanjirō landed a fierce punch right into his jaw, sending him flying through an adjacent building and causing it to collapse in on itself. With a leap he jumped into the dust cloud its collapse created and emerged out the other side into one of the huge collapsed sections of the city. Lava bubbled up from the super-heated cracks that formed a spiderweb through the ground, and the residual heat in the air made everything appear twisted and warped.
Torres was within this crater, standing up in a clearing surrounded by some of the lava pools and shaking his head angrily. As he approached Tanjirō's eyes widened a little as he watched the man's hair start to grow white hair by hair, along with some solid white crystals appearing on his skin.
Catching the man off guard, which showed an apparent drop in his sensory awareness, Tanjirō dropped his sword out of his mouth back into his opposite hand. He landed feet first and slashed clean through Torres' kneecaps, dropping him down to his height.
"Hi no kokyū: Hirin Kagerō! Kiki Onkō! Heki-ra no ten! Kasha!" Tanjirō whispered, linking one technique after the other in a brilliant display of fine-tuned swordsmanship and devastating accuracy. Torres was completely incapable of stopping him, roaring out in frustration as he tried to impale him with one of his wings but to no avail. "Retsujitsu Kōkyō, Enbu!"
"Cease these actions and submit to Salvation!" roared Torres as his left wing came whirling down, appearing to slice clean through Tanjirō's head.
However his body became an orangish red afterimage soon after and it dispelled, the real Tanjirō immediately slicing off that wing at the base while continuing his string of techniques.
"Gen'nichi Kō, Enbu, Shayō Tenshin, Nichiun no Ryū Kaburimai, Shakkotsu En'yō, Yōkatotsu!" Tanjirō finished with a powerful forward thrust, blowing a hole clean through Torres' chest that tore off his wings from his back.
"Gyaghh!" sputtered Torres as he was then thrown back, his body skipping off the melting rock and lava before smashing into the crater's opposite wall.
"I did it…! I connected all twelve! It has to be faster, more accurate! Keep slashing until he's dead!"
Tanjirō wavered for a moment as he clutched his gut, the wound he sustained earlier sending pain waves circulating through his system. The internal injuries he could heal, but any gash or cut he received from the so-called angel could harm him and even worse, kill him. That was proven when Torres had executed Níngguāng by piercing her heart.
He could attack all he wanted, but he had to be sure to defend himself because even though something was happening to the man, he was still vastly dangerous. He then tensed up as he noticed Torres emerge from the rubble pile his impact had formed, and he gasped a little by what he saw.
Torres' hair, once black and somewhat greying on the sides, had become bleach white and thin, along with wrinkles added onto his face beneath the bags under his eyes. He looked far older than what he was originally, and that was when it finally clicked. A discussion he had on Níngguāng's boat during their trip to Europe, where Shinobu had revealed their trump card.
It was Tamayo and Shinobu's drug that was affecting Torres! It was attacking him from the inside, while he was on the outside wounding him externally! Because of this, his scent was slowly changing as his attacks have been weakening.
"If that drug is turning Torres back into a human, then that must mean...if I can delay him for as long as I can, once he gets enough of his human organs back, I can kill him once and for all!"
"Enough of this! All of it!" Torres snarled while gripping the side of his head, his voice sounding more like his own than that of the billions connected to him.
His wounds were beginning to stick as the drug ravaged his body on the inside, leading to him having to regrow his wings to compensate for permanently losing an arm. A second set of wings then emerged from his back just below the first set, and his strength instead of worsening began to pick back up again. He was losing focus on keeping those under his control, the most important of which being Nezuko. She had been the catalyst he needed to incite Salvation in the first place, so if he lost control of her, Salvation as a whole was at risk of coming undone.
"I have to focus...I cannot let myself become distracted by this whelp...he thinks he can beat me because of that drug...he is sorely mistaken. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve…"
"Do you now? Does one of them prevent this?" Muzan spoke into his mind when the demon lord then mentally assaulted him, attacking his consciousness just to get him to lose control.
Tanjirō had no clue what was happening at first, before dozens of tentacles then shot out from Torres' back and lanced out up and out of the crater to enter the city again. He yelled at the top of his lungs for someone to get out of his head, but not knowing who or what he was referring to, Tanjirō could only go off of visuals.
He was going to snatch more entranced people in order to feed on them and regain more strength. Not wanting to let that happen he took off sprinting, leaping over one lava river over the next to get closer to Torres so he could stop him.
"Honō no kokyū, Ku no kata: Rengoku!"
Tanjirō gasped when the voice of his idol, loud and proud, came from his left before there was a huge wave of fire that rushed past him faster than he was running. Carving out an impression in the ground and hurling lava and scorched rock, the flames reached Torres in a huge explosion.
"Rengoku-san!" bellowed Tanjirō in joy after the flames dispersed, seeing the Flame Hashira himself standing before a reeling Torres, who had one half of his torso forcibly separated from the other and all of the tentacles he had manifested burned away.
"It feels good to be back inside of my own body, with no one else in my mind! Hmn!" laughed Kyōjurō as he twirled his sword around, his crimson sword glowing brightly like a beacon in the night.
"I-Impossible…! How are you capable of breaking free…?!" demanded Torres as he healed his wounds, albeit at a vastly slower rate.
"How else do you think, monster?" Kyōjurō barked back after Tanjirō joined his side. "The saying goes 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', right?"
Torres' eyes widened as Muzan's wicked smile permeated his thoughts and made him snarl, his rage reaching new heights after the truth became evident to him. Navigating around the barriers of his wavering mental control, the demon lord had reached out to the Flame Hashira, helping him break free.
To say that Kyōjurō was shocked would be understating it, but when Tamayo had appeared as well, he was forced to believe the Demon Lord's words. And he wasn't the only one who they were able to break free from Torres' mind either.
With a swirl of water and hissing steam as it evaporated from the extreme heat, Giyū joined them with a near-permanent scowl on his face. The Water Hashira was not happy in the slightest bit having been temporarily fully integrated into the connected human neural network before he was rescued.
"That was easily the worst experience ever...now I'm pissed." Giyū said in a low tone. He was using practically all of his willpower to not explode.
"Tomioka-san! You're here too! H-How?! I thought you all were-"
"Let's just say we received some help from the inside, Kamado my boy."
Kyōjurō glanced at his younger comrade and winked with his one good eye, before returning his focus to their enemy directly in front of them. Strangely enough, Torres was silent, undoubtedly thinking of how he now had to contend with not one but three opponents now on the physical front.
He had already blocked out Tamayo and Muzan's influence from his thoughts completely so that he could focus solely on what was in front of him. Three rogue elements were threatening the stability of Humanity's Salvation, and that thought alone made him very, very angry.
"Even after gaining the knowledge of Humanity's vile, destructive nature, you fight against the only order that can guarantee the safety of the human race. Tell me...why must you get in the way of everyone's happiness?" he asked on the verge of totally losing it.
"Happiness? You call all of this happiness?" muttered Kyōjurō as the heat emanating from his sword grew. "You forcibly hijacked the minds of every single person on the planet, robbing them of their free will!
"I saved humanity from its own destruction! Humans can do nothing but sin! Even those who claim to be righteous sons and daughters of God are capable of sin!"
"That is part of human nature itself! To be capable of both good and bad, to make mistakes! That is what it means to be human!" shouted Giyū, clearly at his breaking point.
"It is Humanity's destiny to be amongst the stars as a singular, perfect being. Some had to die, yes, but that is a small price to pay for salvation." Torres responded, unphased by the Water Hashira's outburst.
"You're insane." fired back Tanjirō with a snarl.
"It's simple calculus. With the way the world is going, Humanity is on a crash course with annihilation. If left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needed correction."
"You don't know that!" Kyōjurō bellowed.
"I am the only one who knows that! And I am the only one who had the will to act on it! Now stay out of my way!"
The ground erupted around him as massive tentacles of black sludge appeared, wriggling and thrashing left and right like a giant squid's limbs. Dozens more smaller tendrils then split off from the main bodies and rocketed out into the city from the crater, acting too quickly for the Hashira to react and returned with a huge mass of captured innocents.
Kyōjurō shouted for him to stop, but it was too late. All at once Torres' devoured his captured prey, boosting his power exponentially to compensate for the drug turning him more human by the minute.
"Absolutely, utterly despicable…something like you doesn't deserve to exist." Kyōjurō murmured as he took a stance, ready for what was coming.
Torres' body shrunk back down to normal after finishing his horrific meal and snarled as three new pairs of wings easily five times the size of his body grew out from his back. Three Throne angels then spawned to life in the air around him as well, a fireball roaring to life beyond the three concentric rings that made up their bodies. Torres' body lost its human appearance as he took to the skies, truly entering into the role of being an 'Angel' with his wings and the long clawed hands and pointed feet.
"This angelic form shall be the last thing you mongrels will ever see…" Torres uttered as he formed a huge staff in his right hand, pointing it down on them. Suddenly he coughed and held up a hand to where his mouth should have been as blood seeped out down his chin. "What is the meaning of this…? I haven't been injured enough to cause this much-"
"Did you really think that my drug only had those two effects? This was designed for Muzan, after all, of course there was going to be more to it." Tamayo spoke to Torres, surpassing his mental blocks again to poison his mind with her poisonous voice.
Torres started vomiting up blood and black sludge, hitting his chest multiple times as pain wracked his body. He was aware of the aging process that acted as the first stage of the drug, and the second stage was reverting him back to a human. Was there a third that he did not take into account?
"You're close, you really are. But you're wrong, there's actually four parts to my drug. The third effect would have prevented Muzan from splitting himself off like he did all those years ago." Tamayo explained as she leaned down over Torres, smiling ear to ear as she giggled menacingly. The demon side she hid behind her caring, almost motherly persona was on full display now, and Muzan who watched from the side could only chuckle. "And as for the fourth, as you become more human, it'll attack your weak points...your brain, your heart, your organs, nerves. Down to the cellular level."
"To put it in layman's terms...just as she may have cornered me, she's cornered you. You're looking death right in the eyes." Muzan said, chuckling again to himself.
"Shut up...shut up! Both of you, shut up!" Torres shouted, unaware that he had spoken aloud in real life.
"What's going on, Tanjirō? Why is he throwing up blood?" Giyū questioned.
"It's Shinobu and Tamayo's drug! It's been working on him ever since he absorbed Muzan! That's why his hair is white and he has blood now!" Tanjirō replied with a confident smile. "He's nearly human and his age has got to be exceptionally high now! Thanks to them, we can beat him!"
"Hmn! That is exceptional news! Set your hearts ablaze, the both of you, it's time we finish this!" Kyōjurō exclaimed with a heart laugh, as he twirled his sword again and grinning.
On his signal the three slayers made their move, attacking the transformed Torres with everything they had. Stringing together all of the Sun Breathing's techniques time and time again in conjunction with Kyōjurō and Giyū, the three Hashira lit up the battlefield.
Across all three dimensions they poured their hearts and souls behind their techniques, beating Torres further and further into a corner. Even with his power up, the drug was still making him weaker, and if they kept attacking him like this all together, he wouldn't last long.
Normally, everything that was happening to him would be worthless.. Neither the slashing attacks nor the damage from their shining red blades would work on him. Everything was inferior, and he'd never known since that time what it's like to feel fatigue, thought Torres to himself.
Angrily he battled back the Hashira, using every single tool at his disposal, but to no avail. If he were to stand any chance of surviving and maintaining what he had left under his control, he had to thin out their ranks. With several cracks coming from his body, a giant mouth filled with jagged, wicked-looking teeth opened up across his abdomen from his left shoulder down to his right hip. With an inhuman screech a massive fireball was generated from this mouth and detonated as a huge explosion that he timed with his wings firing off all of their feathers at once.
Pushed away by the resounding shockwave, all three Hashira had to rely almost exclusively on their survival instinct just to prevent themselves from being skewered. Even still, the sheer amount of feather blades flung at them from Torres' six wings was too much for even them to handle.
Giyū took one in his right thigh and another through the right side of his lower abdomen, piercing him all the way through and knocking the wind out of him. He plummeted to the ground close to a river of lava and grunted as he moved himself away from it as soon as possible. Kyōjurō wasn't as lucky, shouting out as one of the blades cut clean through his kneecap and severed his left leg from the knee down from his thigh. Another blade pierced his right shoulder, leaving his arm utterly useless since the tendons had been severed. Before he could hit the ground hard, Tanjirō made it to him just in time and saved him, setting him down next to the fallen Giyū and making sure he wasn't injured any further.
Looking back over his shoulder, Tanjirō snarled at Torres and was on his way up before he suddenly felt woozy. Exhaustion was quickly catching up to him. He was reminded of his one weakness compared to other demons like him, the fact that he didn't consume humans for strength. He had to finish off Torres quickly, or he was going to pass out on the spot.
"Not good, not good. Come on Tanjirō, stay standing! Stay standing!" Tanjirō told himself over and over again, his breathing starting to become ragged at the sudden onset of his weariness.
"Just you and me now...no more distractions…no more second chances." Torres said as his feet touched down on the ground, the man was now more human than ever before.
He could hardly lift his arms up and the wounds he sustained were barely healing at all. Part of the sludge surrounding his head had eroded away, revealing half his face and messy white hair, the wrinkles under his eye deep and expansive. Once he had finished off Tanjirō and killed the other two, he can regain his former self by merging with the huge Progenitor flower.
As a gust of hot air carrying the embers of the city on fire rushed across the crater, they rushed at one another for one final time. Kyōjurō and Giyū could only watch as Tanjirō kept fighting for them. Neither of them could sit idly by as their friend put his life on the line, so together they removed the blades from their bodies and helped each other to their feet. Kyōjurō used Giyū as his support since he had lost a leg, and with a snarl he walked with the Water Hashira to where Tanjirō and Torres' fight had taken them within the crater.
Orange lightning came crashing down from the clouds and the wind picked up again, another rumble tearing through Rome as another portion of the city collapsed in on itself, spewing rock and fire up into the sky.
And through this hellish madness Torres and Tanjirō kept fighting, the latter unleashing every single technique and form that he could possibly muster with what strength he had left. After another class Torres stumbled backward, the mouth opened up in his chest bleeding just as much as his regular mouth and the rest of his wounds. He had a wild, crazed look in his eye and his hair was drenched in sweat down to the roots.
Every breath he took hurt his lungs and caused spots to appear in his vision, but still he remained standing with both of his arms hanging at his sides. Three-quarters of his six wings had been lopped off, refusing to grow back, and his arms utterly couldn't be bothered to move even at his command.
Tanjirō wasn't looking any better either, with his Iwami Kagura outfit having dissipated during their fight and returned to his original outfit before the change. A huge gash stretched across his left eye, his haori was practically in tatters, and cuts lined his body. He couldn't even form his Iron Blood Armor, he was that spent. A light breeze could probably topple him over at that point.
"These damn...persistent...pests...you got crushed, again and again, but you just won't die…!" Torres thought to himself while wheezing, an absolutely ecstatic Muzan grinning ear to ear in his mind.
"Welcome to my world, Torres. I remember my sworn enemy once telling me that the Demon Slayers were like a beast who I had stepped on it's tail far too many times. They weren't ever going to let me go until I perished. I can say for certain that he is correct...enjoy it."
Tanjirō spit some blood out before leaning forward and running full-speed, yelling as he did and throwing Torres off guard momentarily. Leaping off the ground and twirled himself and began another string of Sun Breathing forms, hacking off Torres's arms and any tentacles he had managed to manifest from his deteriorating body.
First came Bone Burning Sun, followed up by Soaring Flame Haze and Fire Chariot. Shining Ray of grace came next, pushing Torres back yard by yard while removing portions of his body piece by piece after he barely managed to regenerate them. Using his almost useless arms as whips, Torres flung his left arm at Tanjirō, but he slid on his knees beneath it and used Solar Halo Dragon Dance to remove the cardinal of another one of his wings.
Tanjirō brought his sword back and readied Yoriichi's in his mouth as he prepared for his next form, before he gasped and suddenly coughed out blood, drenching the handle of the blade and wavering a bit. He cursed as one of Torres' few remaining wings lashed out at his head, but it never arrived at its mark.
"Mizu no kokyū, Jū no kata: Seisei ruten!" Giyū roared as he came barreling in, removing Torres of his wing and saving Tanjirō's life in the process.
"Hi no kokyū: Enbu! Heki-ra no ten, Gen'nichi Kō!" he continued, leaving scorching slash after slash in Torres' body and further robbing him of the limbs he used to defend himself.
When Tanjirō stumbled again mid technique the first Hashira he ever met was there to bail him out, bashing away Torres' limbs so that they could keep laying down the pressure. At the same time as they were doing this Kyōjurō, who was using an upturned piece of concrete as something to lean on, was preparing himself for what he very well knew would be his last attack.
"With only one leg, the Ninth Form won't have as much power, but all I need to do is give Tanjirō the opening he needs!" he thought to himself with a grin as he made his stance as best he could.
He waited, and he waited, and he waited. He waited for the opening he needed as Tanjirō kept attacking and attacking with both of his blades. Finally that moment came after Yoriichi's sword hacked off Torres' right arm, including the shoulder, which sent him reeling.
"Now! Now! Move forward and don't stop moving! Even if it hurts, you have to go!" Kyōjurō thought to himself as he crouched down a tad bit more, almost slipping off the concrete protrusion. When he felt like he was about to collapse, he grit his teeth and yelled out a battlecry. "Honō no kokyū, Ku no kata: Rengoku!"
Tanjirō felt the heat pick up around him and he leaped out of the way just in time to see the one-legged Kyōjurō soar past him, upturning the molten earth to a lesser extent than before, and stab his sword violently between the gaping jaws of Torres' torso mouth, nearly blowing apart his back in another fiery explosion. Coughing up blood and reeling again from the impact, a low groan escaped the large mouth before he raised both arms up in an attempt to bash Kyōjurō's head in.
"Mizu no kokyū, San no kata: Ryūryū Mai…!" Giyū yelled as he made his last appearance, eyes barely open, with his sword trailing a current of water behind it. Cutting clean through both of Torres' arms and around Kyōjurō, he got clear of them and stumbled to the ground with a grunt. "Now, Tanjirō! Finish him!"
Tanjirō started running towards Torres with the full intent of decapitating him, once and for all, but the former Cardinal had one final card up his sleeve. With another crack of his bones as they shifted around in his body, the mouth Kyōjurō had impaled then widened. Assuming it was going to devour him, he was quite literally blown away when Torres unleashed an earth-shattering sonic shockwave that tore apart the surrounding area in an instant.
His left arm was sheared off completely from his body at the shoulder before he flipped end over end, his forehead striking the ground viciously before he slid to a stop. He didn't move much after that, laying there on his stomach with blood seeping out of a deep gash in his forehead.
Tanjirō had been blown away by the sonic scream, as had Giyū, with the former's ears now ringing heavily and some of his organs bursting as a result. The latter was most unscathed, but his senses were still in complete disarray, making it nearly impossible for him to stand up.
"The flower...I need...to get...to the flower…" wheezed Torres with a cough as he set his sights on the giant progenitor flower. With Kyōjurō's sword still impaling his body he picked up speed, entering a light run before he regrew a meager set of wings that enabled him to take flight.
"No…! No!" Tanjirō yelled as he watched Torres fly away, his internal wounds still in the process of healing themselves around his other, more long-lasting injuries.
"Tanjirō...you have to go…! You're the only one…!" Giyū yelled, groaning afterwards and clutching his gut.
Looking from him to the fallen Kyōjurō, the last thing he wanted to do was leave them alone. But knowing that if Torres could restore his immortal form and remove the drug from his body, all of their effort would have been wasted.
Apologizing to the both of them he sucked in a breath to try and lessen the pain shooting through his body before he took off running as well, gaining more momentum with each step he took. He knew there was no way he could get his flaming wings back, not with the state he was in, so he had to rely on his legs and whatever strength he had left to carry him back.
He kept a close eye on Torres in the sky as he ran, eventually reaching the rooftops that let him reach the Vatican once again just in time for Torres to fly into the plant above where the hole he made was. Snarling at himself to keep going, Tanjirō took a running start and leaped as high as he could from the building he was on. Flailing his arms a bit he landed feet first into a roll back in their fight's original starting area, grunting a bit as his body felt like dead weight.
"Torres!" he yelled, the man slowly turning around to look at him.
"It's too late, insect...once I regain my original body...there's nothing any of you will be able to do!" Torres snarled back, standing close by to the still unconscious Nezuko.
"Don't you dare...lay another hand on my sister…!"
Tanjirō snarled and rushed Torres, raising up his sword high, only to be kicked straight in the gut and lose a hand on both of his blades. His sword forged from the one found in the Swordsmith Village hurdle outside and Yoriichi's blade came dangerously close to following it, if not for Tanjirō scrambling to grab it again.
Standing up again, Tanjirō huffed and puffed as he used the sword to pull himself back onto his feet. His vision was full of stars and he was on the verge of collapse. He could pass out right then and there, and that would be the end of it. Everyone who was rooting for him would be let down. The sacrifices of those who had come before would be for nothing.
"No...don't. You can't...everyone's thoughts...and prayers...you can't let them down, Tanjirō...you can't!" he told himself before taking one step forward, wheezing a little when he did. Torres had resigned himself to allow the flower to reach out to him with its roots, assured that he had won. That was a fatal mistake. "Set...your heart ablaze...one last time…! For everyone…!"
Tanjirō gripped Yoriichi's sword tight enough to make the blade turn crimson red again and sucked in one final breath, setting his gaze solely on Torres' neck. This would be the cut that would bring about the end to generations of strife and suffering. It all came down to this one second in time.
"Hi... no kokyū...Enbu..!"
Torres felt a gust of wind blow past him and through his hair, before a scathing hot, burning sensation took over his entire upper body. Letting out a light gasp he felt blood spew out from his neck as his head was separated from it, the flower-filled chamber turning upside down. When his cheek struck the wooden floor he could see his headless body lurch forward and fall with a smack to the ground, the calcifying process it was undergoing rapidly spreading far beyond his control.
"You….you…." uttered Torres as half his face turned to calcium, his one eye staring unblinking at his foe.
"It's over now...you lost…" Tanjirō replied back as he glanced over his shoulder from where he stood, sweat drenching his face and his clothes along with the blood.
"Humanity...is doomed…"
"That's for us...to determine for ourselves...not you…"
Torres was nearly dead, his body almost fully turned to calcium. He knew his time was up, but in his final moments, he fixed his gaze on Tanjirō's eyes and uttered one, final ominous forewarning to the youth.
"Tanjirō...when you hear the thunder...when the storm...comes for you...remember me…"
Torres' face was then frozen in time as the last few parts of his head turned to solidified calcium, marking his death as final, or as he would put it, unchangeable. Seeing him now dead and gone, Tanjirō then collapsed to his knees, and then onto all fours as he coughed and wheezed heavily, the final technique having taken away everything. He knew he was going to pass out soon enough, but he still had to rescue Nezuko from the tree. Grunting he again forced himself to stand against the wishes of his tired, pain-ridden body, and looked to where Nezuko was being connected to the progenitor flower by its roots.
Taking a few quick breaths and hyping itself up, Tanjirō then began to scale the wall of the chamber, drawing closer and closer to his sister. Once there he used Yoriichi's sword to cut her free and pulled her into his chest, losing grip at the same time. With a thud he landed sharply on his back, jarring his vision and causing him to yelp in pain, but it hardly mattered.
Nezuko was safe in his arms once again. Disconnected from the plant she slowly opened her eyes and Tanjirō was hit by a sudden revelation by what he saw. Tamayo's drug that she had taken and was in the process of going through its effects when she got kidnapped had run its course.
"O...Onii-chan…" Nezuko mumbled, barely awake.
"Yes...Nezuko, it's me...it's Tanjirō…" he replied with tears of joy in his eyes, his arms wrapping themselves around her body in a gentle hug.
Their happy moment was interrupted by a deep rumble that came from near the base of the giant progenitor flower. Tanjirō stood up as quickly as he could while holding Nezuko and sheathing Yoriichi's sword, then made his way to the edge of the gaping hoke and looked down.
Giant cracks began to appear in the roots and wood that formed the stem of the giant flower, and when they reached where they were he was nearly knocked off balance. Since Torres had died and Nezuko's connection to the tree had been severed, the whole plant was beginning to rapidly die and come apart. With them being so high up and the ground they were standing on about to disappear entirely, they had only one viable option.
Taking a few steps back, Tanjirō prayed that he would survive what he was about to do, and then jumped. The wind whipped around him as he careened down towards the earth, the ground getting closer and closer with each second. He then closed his eyes and turned so that he was holding his sister against his abdomen, his back facing the other direction so that it took the blow.
A split second later his back crashed into the street outside the Vatican as the giant progenitor flower came down, breaking apart and disintegrating into a plume of blue particles that were picked up by the wind and spread out through the sky. When the dust settled the flower was now gone, even the roots, and Tanjirō coughed and spit up blood.
He was stuck in a crater that his impact had formed, and his body was aching so much that he didn't even want to move. Checking on his sister to make sure she was safe, he smiled and sighed in relief when all he saw was dust that had gotten on her face and in her hair.
Grunting he finally managed to dislodge himself from the road and held Nezuko still in his arms, wheezing with every breath as he walked slowly, step after step, towards St. Peter's Square. It had gotten extraordinarily quiet in the city, with the raging storm Torres had created above beginning to simmer down and turn to a light drizzle that could begin cooling off the lava and super-heated rock it was producing.
"Everyone...I have...to get...to everyone…" he murmured under his breath, his will being the only thing left that was keeping him going. At that point it was a miracle he was even standing at all.
Finally, after what felt like years, he arrived in the now barren and ruined St. Peter's square, the scars left behind by the giant plant's growth still evident in the impressions its roots had left behind and the stones it had upturned. There were still some blue flowers growing as well, but Tanjirō was only focused on one thing, and one thing alone.
With Torres gone, the sludge chairs he had forcibly made everyone sit in had calcified entirely, and since Kyōjurō and Giyū had woken up, those that remained were Kanao, Inosuke, Zenitsu, Mitsuri and Shinobu. Glancing at Níngguāng he approached her first and gently set Nezuko down nearby, and then leaned the woman's head back so that he could see her mouth. Praying this worked, he held a wavering hand above her parted lips and let a few drops of his blood fall past them. Once he was sure they had dripped down her throat he turned his attention to his friends and loved ones, watching, hoping that they would wake up soon. As the minutes ticked on his heart sank deeper and deeper into his stomach, and the hope he had began to fade like the light of the sun as day turned to night.
It was when he had nearly lost all hope when he heard Mitsuri grunt slightly and he saw Shinobu's hand twitch, before the pair, as well as the rest of his friends, started waking up slowly from their very, very long naps.
"That...was awful...my head is pounding…" muttered Mitsuri as she lifted her head up and blinked a few times.
"You can say that aga-oomph!" Shinobu replied before Tanjirō threw himself at both her and Mitsuri, hugging them at the same time.
"Y-You're back...you're really back…!" he cried, his arms tightening a little around them.
"Tanjirō! You-!"
Mitsuri was about to continue before his crying then suddenly stopped, and when Shinobu managed to break herself free and pull him away, they found that he had finally passed out fully and was in a deep slumber. Zenitsu and Inosuke soon followed behind her and Mitsuri, and Kanao was the last to wake up fully.
One by one they saw what kind of state Tanjirō was in, and they immediately all gathered around him to be there for when he'd eventually wake up. Shinobu smiled softly and gently pulled away some strands of his hair as he laid his head on her thighs, and Mitsuri held onto his hand right there next to her. No words had to be shared between them, they all knew what he had accomplished that night. It didn't even matter that it was sprinkling on them. They had won.
Giyū and Kyōjurō, the latter being walked by the former with his one arm over his shoulders, then entered the square after having returned finally from where they were left, and happened upon the scene. They both smiled and as they approached they were immediately helped by the younger slayers, with Mitsuri being the first to freak out about the Flame Hashira's grievous injuries, which he laughed off as being nothing but minor scratches.
Meanwhile, as he was tended to by Kanao and Mitsuri, Shinobu was joined by the Water Hashira who grunted a little after sitting down and sighed. He looked at her, and she looked at him, before they both gazed at the sleeping Tanjirō and smiled.
"To think, that young man I met in the snow, all that time ago...would be that very same person laying here before me...what a world we live in..."
Two former enemies stood apart from one another in Limbo, staring eye to eye. Muzan and Tamayo were silent, being the first to arrive there and having already seen off Torres, who had gone practically kicking and screaming into hell when forced by the both of them there with glee. But with him gone, it was just them now.
"Even after all those years, your skills had not faded in the slightest...that drug you concocted was impressive, to say the least." Muzan stated with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Well, it was crafted for you, dear Muzan. If that vile creature hadn't intervened, it would have led to your own death." Tamayo replied with a little bit of a vile smile and a giggle.
"I...don't deny it in the least bit. I've been thinking, Tamayo, ever since I was absorbed against my will by Torres...perhaps that fool of a man Kagaya was right all along."
"What are you saying, Muzan? Are you actually feeling regret?"
"Shut it woman. What I'm saying is that perhaps all that drivel about how human thoughts are eternal wasn't as crazy as it first sounded. When everyone in the world was connected, when we could all hear one another's thoughts, it was…"
"Overwhelming?" questioned Tamayo while placing a hand on her hip. "To be honest, and I can't believe I'm going to agree with you on this, but it was quite powerful in a sense."
"I always thought Humans were spineless, pitiful creatures, and that the Demon Slayers were stubborn pests that didn't know when to quit. But after watching them fight that man, even after it truly did seem like they had lost…"
Muzan trailed off, his pride getting in the way of admitting where he went wrong, and he just slowly shook his head and turned away from Tamayo for a moment. Tamayo meanwhile looked at the man she had hated for her entire life and for some odd reason, she felt a slight tinge of pity for him emerge in her heart.
Why, she asked herself? That she did not have the answer to, nor did she want to try and find one. Their time was nearly up anyways, they would have to go soon. But in that time, maybe, just maybe, one of them would go with something new learned.
"Perhaps...they are more durable than I first thought." he finally said, the Demon Lord flicking his eyes to the left to look back at Tamayo.
"Humans are remarkably determined...I had seen that many times, but they all pale in comparison to that young man, Tanjirō." Tamayo replied with a soft smile.
"Kamado Tanjirō...even after what I did to his family, he never gave up once...perhaps, if it had been me, I would have been the one to perish by his blade…"
Silence once again took over between Muzan and Tamayo, before the former chuckled a little to himself and turned away from Tamayo with the tip of his fedora. There was nothing more he had to say, and for Tamayo, the feeling was mutual.
"Goodbye, Tamayo." Muzan said without turning his head.
"Goodbye, Muzan. Give my best regards to that man Torres in Hell for me, will you?"
"And if you find and meet that fool Kagaya...tell him that maybe...he wasn't that much of a fool."
A/N SHEEEEEEESH. What. a. chapter. It's all come up to this guys, and I hope I was able to deliver on all of your expectations. I drew from a variety of sources on this one, and those of you with the knowledge necessary should hopefully be able to find out what they are. I'll give you some hints. Ever hear of a game called Project Wingman? That may be my next writing project ;)
Anyways, with this chapter coming out, for some of you this may be out on the 29th, which would mean in your side of the world, it would be my birthday! That's right, August 29th is my birthday! So yea...I'm turning 23 years old! And my gift to you guys is this chapter, that solidifies the climax all of us have been waiting for. With this set in stone, there's only 2, 3 max chapters left. It's coming to an end guys...over a year of hard work and dedication. Let's finish strong!
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Please leave a favorite and a follow if you have not already, and drop a review telling me what you think! I'll see you guys in the next one!
Translation(s):
(Hinokami Kagura = Sun Breathing)
Hi no kokyū: Enbu
- Sun Breathing: Waltz
Hi no kokyū: Retsujitsu Kōkyō
- Sun Breathing: Scorching Crimson Mirror
Hi no kokyū: Kasha
- Sun Breathing: Fire Chariot
Tsuki no kokyū, Roku no kata: Tokoyo Kogetsu - Muken
- Moon Breathing, Sixth Form: The Eternal Night's Solitary Moon: Avici
Hi no kokyū: Nichiun no Ryū Kaburimai
- Sun Breathing: Solar Halo Dragon Dance
Hi no kokyū: Hirin Kagerō
- Sun Breathing: Soaring Flame Haze
Hi no kokyū: Kiki Onkō
- Sun Breathing: Shining Ray of Grace
Hi no kokyū: Heki-ra no ten
- Sun Breathing: Azure Heaven
Hi no kokyū: Enbu
- Sun Breathing: Flame Waltz
Hi no kokyū: Gen'nichi Kō
- Sun Breathing: Parhelion Rainbow
Hi no kokyū: Shayō Tenshin
- Sun Breathing: The Setting Sun
Hi no kokyū: Shakkotsu En'yō
- Sun Breathing: Bone Burning Sun
Hi no kokyū: Yōkatotsu
- Sun Breathing: Sunflower Lance
Honō no kokyū, Ku no kata: Rengoku
- Flame Breathing, Ninth Form: Rengoku
Mizu no kokyū, Jū no kata: Seisei ruten
- Water Breathing, Tenth Form: Constant Flux
Mizu no kokyū, San no kata: Ryūryū Mai
- Water Breathing, Third Form: Dance of the Swift Current