"Are you okay?"
With a clean strike, Tomioka Giyu severed the head of the slit-mouthed demon. The body began to crumble into ash, and Giyu turned his calm gaze toward Murata.
Startled by that steady look, Murata instinctively answered,
"I'm fine… huh? I really do seem fine."
He quickly patted himself down—aside from the bruising on his back from being thrown to the ground, there were no serious injuries. Relief washed over his face.
Watching from the side, Hayashi finally understood who this swordsman was. At first, when the kasugai crow had called out the name "Murata," he couldn't place it. But the man's trademark middle-parted black hair and his uncanny luck in surviving this encounter jogged his memory.
Murata—one of the lesser-known but resilient members of the Demon Slayer Corps. In the original story, he was the one who endured the harsh trial at Fujikasane Mountain, survived the nightmare of Mount Natagumo, and even stood through the Corps' final desperate battle against Muzan. A swordsman without flashy techniques, but stubborn enough to live on where many others had fallen.
As Hayashi recalled this, Murata's expression suddenly tensed.
"There's… another demon here!"
The words had barely left his mouth when a harsh scraping echoed from nearby.
Crunch!
A long, jagged claw tore straight through the wall of a wooden house, leaving a deep gash. Murata flinched in alarm.
"I was originally being chased by that clawed demon! Just when I managed to shake him off, that slit-mouthed one knocked me down!"
He glanced anxiously at Giyu and the unfamiliar swordsman in the red haori. Encountering two demons on a single mission was terrible luck… yet, running into the Water Hashira himself, along with a mysterious ally, might just have turned that misfortune around.
Bang! Bang!
The wall splintered further, and two massive clawed arms smashed through. Within moments, the house collapsed into a shower of dust and wooden debris.
From the wreckage emerged a short, stocky demon with grotesquely oversized arms, its crab-like form accentuated by jagged pincers that gleamed in the moonlight.
The creature sneered at the pile of ash on the ground.
"Tch… trying to steal a meal before me, were you? Looks like someone got to it first."
Its eyes narrowed at the three demon slayers, then locked onto Murata.
"Oi! You with the middle-parted hair… You brought these hunters here?"
The demon's mouth twisted into a malicious grin.
"Good. I love it when I get to devour you while you're still alive. Demon Slayers are the finest meat—no wonder I've grown this strong after eating so many of you!"
Without waiting for a reply, the demon struck.
Blood Demon Art: Piercing Tongue!
Though its massive claws were raised in a charging stance, its true attack came from elsewhere—its mouth. Shielded by its thick arms, the demon snapped its jaws open, unleashing a barbed, spine-covered tongue that shot forward like a whip.
The strike was so fast it blurred in the air. Murata's pupils widened in horror.
He had expected slashing claws. He had prepared for brute force.
But this monster's true weapon… was the tongue of a frog, hidden behind that crab-like shell.
Murata hastily raised his blade to block.
But just as the demon's tongue was about to strike him, it suddenly curved mid-air and shot toward Giyu Tomioka instead!
Murata's mind went blank. He blurted out instinctively:
"Tomioka Sama, be careful!"
Swish!
Steel flashed. A long section of the tongue fell cleanly to the ground.
Murata's eyes widened in awe.
So fast! I didn't even see him draw… Is this the strength of a Hashira?!
Giyu's usually expressionless face darkened with fury.
"How many swordsmen of the Demon Slayer Corps have you slaughtered?"
The demon ignored its severed tongue writhing on the floor and sneered:
"When I was human, I worked as an apprentice at the Island Bakery in Nagoya.
I stole bread every day, so much I lost count.
Asking me how many of your kind I've devoured is the same as asking—
Do you remember how many loaves of bread you've eaten?"
Even as it taunted, the demon's body tensed.
Its mouth gaped open, and with a wet snap, it spat out the bloody length of severed tongue like a spear toward Giyu!
At the same time, the fragment on the ground twisted, swelling into a giant snake that coiled itself around Murata's body.
And the demon itself lunged—not at Giyu, but at Hayashi.
In its eyes, Murata was slippery prey. Tomioka, a true master, was too dangerous.
But the crimson-haired youth in plain yellow beneath a red haori—weak-looking, silent, not even a Demon Slayer—
He was the perfect hostage.
All of its tricks, its Blood Demon Art, its smug words… were only a ruse to lower their guard.
Hayashi blinked, genuinely surprised.
With the aid of the Transparent World, the demon's every twitch and scheme was laid bare before him—
yet until the very moment it lunged, even he hadn't been certain the real target was himself.
Bold one, he thought. If you dare come for me, I'll answer in full.
Hayashi drew his blade in a single breath.
The instant steel cleared its sheath, it glowed a dark crimson.
His heartbeat thundered, body temperature surged, white vapor hissed between his lips, and the mark on his brow spread.
Transparent World.
Breath of the Sun.
The Red Blade.
The Mark.
All four weapons against demons united—
a declaration of his full respect for this coming battle.