As the fifty-something soldiers behind Jubal all raised their guns at the group, Jubal told them, "Fire only on my command!" He thought to himself as he stared down the slayers and Gyutaro, "This is going to be one very satisfying battle. Not only will I be able to eliminate that annoying idiot Gyutaro, but I'll also kill James Colby at the same time. It feels almost like another Christmas to me."

James advised the others, "Drop your weapons down for now. We're outgunned."

Tanjiro asked him, "Are you sure?"

Inosuke yelled out, "Fuck their guns! We got swords!"

James chastised him with, "You idiot, you'll get yourself fuckin' killed if you try to fight them with just a sword! Besides…" He then sheathed his sword and drew his shotgun from behind his back. "We all got guns of our own."

Inosuke, realizing he had all but completely forgotten about his own revolver, muttered, "Shit… I do…" He then pulled it out as well. "I still don't really know how to work this gun thing well, so bear with me."

Tanjiro weakly drew his gun, but James told him, "Back off for a bit, Tanjiro. You're hurt real bad."

"But my sister…"

"I'm right here," Nezuko replied as she ran over to meet him. "Oniichan, I'm here."

"Nezuko… I… I thought you had lost yourself…"

Nezuko then helped bring Tanjiro down to the ground and laid him out to help him recuperate. "I'm fine, oniichan. It's you I'm worried about. Looks like you've been through Hell and back."

"What… What about Zenitsu?"

Immediately, Nezuko remembered what had happened to him and froze in panic as a sense of dread swept over her. "Zenitsu-san… Oh no…"

"What?"

"Oh no!" Nezuko then got up and ran away from the scene to find Zenitsu, leaving the others behind.

Meanwhile, George emerged from the crowd of soldiers and told the slayers in Japanese, "You guys are totally surrounded. We'll take over the fight from here."

"Hey," Gyutaro then asked him in anger. "What the fuck did you mean by that?! This is my fight! Get out of my way!"

"We don't require your services anymore," George replied in a rather cold tone. "You're probably wonderin' why your sister got killed, right? Well, we had a little chat with Muzan about that, and he feels like your sister is a bit of a drag on you and your abilities, so we made sure you weren't linked with her anymore."

"What?! What the fuck do you mean we weren't linked?!"

"Muzan severed it," George repeated to him. "It's that simple. With a snap of his fingers, your special little decapitation resistance ability was gone."

Jubal then looked down at Daki's clothes with disgust on his face as the slayers looked on. "So, this bitch is dead now?" He then stomped on her clothes and scraped his shoes off on them before spitting into them to dirty them further. "Fucking cunt."

Shocked at the disrespect Jubal showed to Daki, Tanjiro yelled, "What the Hell?! That's so wrong!"

Mukago was enraged at what he had done to her clothes, and screamed at him in a state of unbridled anger, "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" She quickly pulled out her gun and raced towards him, screaming as tears flowed down her face, "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Hinatsuru and Inosuke quickly grabbed Mukago, preventing her from attacking Jubal just as several soldiers raised their rifles at her. Hinatsuru warned her, "Mukago, stop!"

Inosuke yelled, "Calm down!"

Jubal turned to his soldiers and shook his head, telling them, "Don't waste your bullets on her."

As Mukago was held back, she turned to Gyutaro and asked him, "You're just gonna stand there and let them do that to what's left of her?!! Why the fuck aren't you saying anything?!"

Gyutaro shrugged. "Daki's dead, you know? What does it matter what happens to her clothes?"

As Inosuke and Hinatsuru let go of Mukago, she replied in shock, "What did you just say…?"

"I don't think you fully understand what kind of inhumanity is needed to be an Upper Moon," Gyutaro explained to her.

"She was your sister! Doesn't that mean anything to you?!"

"Not as a demon," Gyutaro shook his head. "The loss of her abilities and her skills, though… That I do lament. However, her as a person… I don't have time to care too much, you know? I used her just as much as my master uses me, man."

"If you mean that, then I horribly misjudged you for all the decades I knew you and Daki-senpai!"

A still-wounded Tengen put a hand from his uninjured side on her shoulder, telling her, "Come on, Mukago-san. That's enough. Gyutaro isn't our focus right now. Those Americans are."

"Get off of me!" Mukago then shoved Tengen's hand aside and declared, "As far as I'm concerned, Gyutaro is still my enemy!"

Tanjiro commented quietly, "Mukago-san…"

"GYUTARO! Are you listening to me?! Huh?!" Mukago angrily began to tear him apart verbally for not caring enough about his sister's death. "You ungrateful asshole! After everything Daki-senpai did for you... You were her big brother! You were the most important person in her life, and you're telling me she meant fucking nothing?! You're telling me you feel nothing at all for her death?! If... If I had become an Upper Moon, had I stayed with Muzan... Would I have become as cold-hearted as you?!"

James said to himself, "Jesus Christ… She's talkin' right from the heart."

"She lived for you! SHE FUCKING DIED FOR YOU! All she wanted to do was protect you, and for what?! To be used as a tool, as a disguise?! You know, she never got to have her own dreams about the future, but she didn't care as long as you were happy, and yet here you are, treating her like this! That... That's fucked... That's so fucked!" By the end of her rant, Mukago was once again crying, her tears spilling out onto the cobblestone pavement below. "What's wrong with you…?"

Gyutaro finally responded after waiting over half a minute by telling her, "Mukago, enough…"

"Huh?"

"You always talked too much…" Her words had moved Gyutaro to tears, and as he began to truly mourn Daki, he told her, "Your words cut deep, deeper than any nichirin blade the demon slayers wield. My sister always tried to project an image of selfishness, arrogance, and pridefulness, but deep down, she was too nice to fully embrace it. She tried to be Muzan's loyal servant, but there was always a part of her that was just like her before she became who you know now. As she was fighting you both earlier and now, her heart was breaking in two from having to fight her best friend, not to mention the bond the Kamado siblings shared. It reminded her too much of me and her. I can't hide it anymore. I feel like a part of me has been ripped away from me that can never grow back."

Tanjiro asked him, "Are you telling the truth?"

"I am," he replied as he turned his head to face the others. "I also feel something else, though. I feel content knowing that this is probably the end for me." He then spat up some blood, indicating he was still feeling the effects of the poison injected from Hinatsuru's kunai knives. "Uzui Tengen, you've been pretty quiet. Are you surprised to see such emotions come from an Upper Moon?" He then chuckled. "All demons were once human. Mukago, Colby, Nezuko, you three know this very well. No matter how hard many of us try to escape that one simple fact, we all eventually fail. At least… I have failed."

George asked him in contempt, "So now that you're done with that little spiel, what are you gonna do about it? Me and Jubal have had it with you two. You've both been nothin' but trouble ever since Muzan assigned us to oversee you two and correct your bullshit."

Gyutaro then laughed at George. "We don't need any fucking correction, man! We were just fine before you assholes came along!" He then formed two sickles in his hands and told the slayers, "Hey, do me a favor and help me slaughter these fuckers!"

Hinatsuru told Makio and Suma, "Go help them. I'll stay with Tengen-sama."

"But there's like fifty of them," Suma replied in fear.

"Don't be so scared," Makio told her as she dragged her up on her feet. "Come on, let's kick some ass!"

"Okay, okay, okay, ow!"

As both Makio and Suma raced forward with their knives, Hinatsuru asked Tengen, "How are you doing, Tengen-sama?"

"My shoulder still hurts like a motherfucker," Tengen replied. "But I don't have any other injuries aside from that, which is pretty damn amazing given what I went through." He then told James and Inosuke, "You heard Gyutaro! Go fight those bastards!"

"I'll go find Nezuko," Tanjiro then said as he got up. "I was told to stay back for this one."

"Yeah, stay back." James then started things off by firing his revolver at the army, firing off all six shots rapidly. "We got this, kid!"

As the five attackers all charged forward at the army, one of the soldiers said to another, "Those guys are gonna have a bad time! We got 'em outgunned!"

Then, another soldier shouted, "Holy shit, look at that!" As they all focused on Gyutaro, they saw that he had formed a wave of blood red sickles behind him. "He's forming his sickles!"

Gyutaro roared in revenge, "Here I come, assholes!" As all five of them attacked the army, Gyutaro in particular began slaughtering many of the soldiers in his path with the wave of sickles, killing them with ease and spilling their blood all over the ground and on their comrades before he then began battling them directly.

A soldier shouted just before Gyutaro struck him, "He's a mons-" As his head flew in the air from being decapitated, Gyutaro then cut through another soldier right behind him.

Meanwhile, James zeroed in on George, who drew a sword and immediately clashed with him. George shouted at him, "You guys are suicidal for charging at an army over ten times your size!"

James replied as they continued to battle each other. "You guys are the suicidal ones! Y'all think you can go up against a Japanese Upper Moon and a Pillar!"

George then tried drawing a gun with his free hand, but James kicked him to prevent him from doing so. As he got up, he blocked an attack from James and staggered back to his feet. "This won't be my end! It can't be!"

"Accept that it is!"

"Never! You can't kill the likes of me!"

"I'm insulted that y'all think you're equivalent to me!"

"What was that?!" George then managed to stab James in the chest, but he was unable to push deep into him before James ripped the sword out of his chest with his bare right hand. As his wounds rapidly healed, James yelled, "That fuckin' hurt!" He then noticed a soldier coming behind him with a bayonet on a rifle and dodged the attack before quickly and almost effortlessly decapitating him. As he turned back to George, he blocked an attack from him. "You can't keep this up forever!"

"You can't either!"

"Bullshit! I can do this all day and all night! I won't need that long, though!" James dodged a slash from George's sword before jumping up and yelling, "Breath of Flames, Third Form: Blazin' Universe!" He then slashed downwards, managing to land a direct hit on George's neck and completely cut through it, killing him instantly.

Inosuke, having seen James kill George as he sliced off the heads of two soldiers at the same time, yelled out, "One down, one to go!" However, just as he was about to slice off the head of a third soldier, he himself got shot in the stomach, causing him to scream in pain, "Agh, fuck!" As he stood his ground, the soldier who shot him was quickly decapitated by Inosuke in a revenge attack. "Second Fang: Slice!" After cutting the third soldier's head off, he coughed up blood from his bullet wound and said to himself, "God damn… That hurts…"

Jubal, realizing that the odds were quickly going against his favor, began to back away from the fight. "Oh no… My men are being… They're being slaughtered!" He then drew his officer's sword as he prepared to defend himself from Gyutaro in any way he could. As Gyutaro finally came through the mass of soldiers, Jubal saw several bayonets and swords sticking out of his body and grew more confident, thinking to himself, "He's been stabbed plenty of times! All of my blades have been poisoned, so he surely can't-"

Jubal's thoughts were cut off when a badly wounded Gyutaro stabbed him with one of his sickles on the right side of his abdomen. As he screamed in pain, Gyutaro told him, "There we go! I got you right where I want you, man!"

"Agh… Fucking pest!" Jubal yelled at him in what little Japanese he knew as he stared at him in fear, "You fool! You fool! You are a fool! Be with your sister! Die!"

Gyutaro replied in what little English he knew after he coughed up more blood from his multiple poisonings, "Fuck you…" He then switched back to Japanese, telling him, "I have no intention of going where my sister is going. I cannot follow her into Heaven. Instead, I have a different idea." He then rested his second sickle against his neck. "I'm gonna take you with me to Hell instead! It'll be a fitting place for a demon of my strength! I'm a fucking monster, so I should fit right in with the rest of them! You, on the other hand, will suffer a long and painful eternity!"

In one single motion, he sliced Jubal's head completely off, killing him as his head rolled on the ground and his body fell. As the last of the soldiers were killed by Makio, Suma, and James, they all watched as Gyutaro stumbled back around towards them and then collapsed to the ground as his body began to give up fighting the poisons that he had ingested. James muttered to himself, "Holy shit…"

Inosuke then fell to his knees as he continued to spit up blood, removing his boar's head mask and wiping his mouth and chin to get rid of the blood that covered the lower half of his face. "Agh, damn it…"

"Inosuke!" James then told Makio and Suma, "Attend to Inosuke! I think he's been shot!" As they both ran to aid Inosuke, James ran to Gyutaro. "Hey, Gyutaro! Gyutaro!"

"Hey… I…"

James knew that Gyutaro was not going to survive his injuries. "Hey, do you need me to do anythin' for ya?"

"I… Bring… Bring me to Daki's clothes…"

James nodded. "Sure thing." He then scooped up Gyutaro in his arms and walked him over the weapons and clothes of the demon soldiers they had killed together and then gently laid him down next to the pile of clothes Daki had left behind. "Here you go."

"Thank you, Colby…" He turned to Daki's clothes as he began to tear up, telling them as if he was talking to her while also weakly grabbing a hold of them with one of his hands, "Daki, I… No… Ume… I'm sorry I got you involved in all this. You were always by my side. The least I can do is be by your side as I die… I wish I could join you, but I can't. You still… You still have a chance to go to Heaven, but that door has long since closed for me, Ume. I will always love you, and you will always be my little sister…"

As Gyutaro finally died, his body faded into the night sky and a light snow began falling onto the ground. James looked on as Gyutaro turned into nothing but a small pile of clothes consisting of a pair of pants and four armbands. "No, Gyutaro," James corrected him after his death. "You're wrong. The two of you will end up together, whether it's in Heaven or Hell. I'm sure of it. Even if your sister has to accompany you into Hell, you will be together."

Just as Tengen's other two wives were beginning to attend to Inosuke's injuries and Hinatsuru was wrapping up Tengen's own bullet wound, they all heard a familiar voice from down the street. "Uzui-san! Colby-san! Hey, guys! Over here!"

All of them looked over and saw both Obanai and Mitsuri walking down the street with several Kakushi in tow. Obanai had his revolver drawn, while Mitsuri logged around a small photography kit in a backpack. Tengen looked up from the ground and remarked playfully to the husband and wife duo, "Hey there… Took you guys long enough! Agh…"

"Looks like you guys won," Obanai replied. "I assume there was indeed an Upper Moon here."

"Two of them plus three American Knights of the Moon," James confirmed as he extended a hand to Obanai, who realized what he was doing and shook it in response. "Well, technically, two demons occupyin' the same Upper Moon spot."

"I'll never get used to this hand-shaking thing," Obanai admitted.

James assured him, "It's fine. So, as for how the battle happened, well… It's a long story…"

Mitsuri meanwhile set her backpack down and saw that both Inosuke and Tengen had been shot. "Holy shit… Hey, guys, are you okay?!"

"I'll be fine," Tengen replied with a thumbs-up from his uninjured arm. "I got shot in the shoulder."

"He'll be fine," Hinatsuru agreed. "We just need to get him to a hospital with clean tools. I stopped the bleeding with some pressure bandages."

Mitsuri nodded. "What about Inosuke?"

Makio then yelled over, "Hey, we need some help here! This guy's not doing too well!"

"Shit…" Mitsuri then ran over alongside a Kakushi carrying a medical kit. "Where did he get shot?"

"In the abdomen," Suma replied as she tightened a bandage on a barely conscious Inosuke to apply more pressure. "He needs to get to a hospital now!"

"On it," the Kakushi with a medical kit replied. He then turned to the group of other Kakushi and yelled over, "Hey, get me a stretcher! We need to bring Hashibira-san to a hospital before anything else!"

As they attended to Inosuke, Mitsuri opened up her backpack on the ground and pulled out a camera and a tripod to begin documenting the scene. "Okay…" Once she loaded a fresh roll of film into the camera, she took two test photos of the scene.

Obanai asked her, "Everything alright, dear?"

"I'm just really worried about Inosuke-kun," Mitsuri replied as she snapped a third photo. "I mean, I'm worried about Uzui-san, too, but he seems like he'll be okay."

…

Meanwhile, as Tanjiro walked over to Nezuko, he saw her kneeling on the ground and looking at something. "Huh… Nezuko?"

Nezuko, having heard her brother, asked him, "Oniichan… What did I say I wanted to find in a boy?"

"You… You wanted a boy that was like a hisha in shogi," Tanjiro remembered as he struggled to continue his journey, still badly hurt by what the battle had done to him. "Nezuko, what's wro-?" As he looked down, he realized what Nezuko was kneeling next to and gasped. "Zenitsu!"

Zenitsu remained motionless, having not moved at all since Daki had seemingly killed him. Nezuko gently caressed his face in her hands as she told her brother, "Yeah… I said I wanted a hisha… When… When we first met Zenitsu-san, all I knew of him was that he was a voice who protected my box. He didn't even know I was inside, and yet he guarded it with his life because he was your friend."

Tanjiro fell down due to the pain becoming too much for him to stand up, and as such, he had to crawl over on his hands and knees to reach Nezuko and Zenitsu. "Zenitsu, no… No, God, please, anything but this… God damn it, don't do this to me…"

"On the Infinity Train," Nezuko then continued. "He protected me with his life again, even as he was still fast asleep. I thought it was kinda funny, actually. I never expected someone like him to be so brave when he wasn't even awake. I always had a feeling he was in love with me, oniichan." She then took a deep breath as tears began to fall down her face again. "I just wish it didn't take me this long to realize I loved him too."

Tanjiro held it in as best as he could, wanting to stay strong in front of Nezuko. "He can't be dead… No…"

"Oniichan… Zenitsu-san never hated me or was afraid of me, even when I was at my worst as a demon," Nezuko continued to tell him as she began to cry. "He loved me, and curse him, I love him too! He didn't have to protect me all the time, damn it! I mean, for fuck's sake, I knew the Dance of the Fire God, too, and yet he always stepped in! Oniichan, I… I lost my hisha today, and I didn't even know it until the moment he died in my arms…" Nezuko then rested her head on his body and let out a loud wail of grief as she finally broke down and she tugged at his blood-stained clothes. "Zenitsu… Why… Zenitsu!"

Tanjiro finally was unable to hold back as well, and began to cry to himself. "Zenitsu… No… Why… Zenitsu… Why did you have to die?!" Still reeling from the loss of Kyojuro a little over four months prior, Zenitsu's apparent death hit him hard. "I'm at a loss for words," he thought to himself. "Nothing I can say can accurately describe the sorrow I hold in my heart at this moment."

As Nezuko continued to weep rather loudly, she thought to herself in her own grief and sorrow, "Why did I not realize I felt the same about him until now? It's far too late to do anything about it. It's all too late."