At the ancestral Ubuyashiki estate, the heart of the Demon Slayer Corps, Kagaya Ubuyashiki received the devastating news at the same moment his Hashira arrived at the scenes of the attacks.
"No," he whispered, the single word barely audible. His hands, resting on his lap, began to tremble. "It… it can't be."
For a man who had endured a lifetime of suffering from a debilitating curse, Kagaya had cultivated an almost supernatural state of calm. He had long been unfazed by personal honor or disgrace. But the intelligence laid out before him shattered that composure in an instant. The report felt like a physical blow, stealing the air from his lungs.
He had never imagined, not in his worst fears, that Muzan would use the three captured members of the Corps for something so monstrous. To not only twist their minds but to force them to slaughter innocent people on public trains, turning them into enemies of the very people they had sworn to protect.
"My Lord… please, you must take care of yourself," his wife, Amane, said softly, her voice a steady presence beside him. Even she, a woman who had accepted her family's grim fate with grace, felt her disgust for Muzan curdle into a cold, hard hatred.
For centuries, the relationship between the Ubuyashiki family, the Demon Slayer Corps, and Muzan Kibutsuji had been one of simple, mortal enmity. But over the last hundred years, Muzan's tendency to hide in the shadows, to manipulate events from afar, had created a fixed pattern. They had come to expect his evil to be subtle, a rot that spread in the darkness. The recent failures at Mount Sagiri and Mount Fujikasane, followed by the coordinated demon attacks and assassination attempts, had been alarming, but they hadn't been enough to make them re-evaluate the true depth of Muzan's cunning.
Now, they understood. This single act of public terror was a masterstroke of cruelty. Even with his gift of foresight, Kagaya felt a profound tremor of fear run through him as he contemplated the mind of his enemy.
"The other Hashira… they have arrived on the scene," Kagaya said, his voice strained with pain. "They arrived in time only to be forced to strike down their own comrades."
A wave of agony, sharper than any pain his curse had ever given him, washed over him. Muzan's strategy was viciously effective. In one swift move, he had destroyed the reputation the Demon Slayer Corps had carefully built over hundreds of years. More importantly, he had turned heroes into villains, forcing the Corps into an impossible position: they would now have to hunt and kill their own.
Terrifying. The word echoed in Kagaya's mind. How can a creature as terrifying as Muzan Kibutsuji even exist?
At the three train sites, the air was thick with the stench of blood. The initial shock among the public was giving way to outrage and horror. No one could have imagined that the Demon Slayer Corps, an organization whispered about in legends as protectors against demons, would turn on ordinary people with such savagery. The death toll was immense, the impact incalculable.
This act had not only condemned the Demon Slayer Corps, but it had also pushed the ancient and powerful Ubuyashiki family into a precarious, indefensible position. They were now villains in the eyes of the nation. Thousands of fingers were pointed at them, and a nightmare of their own making was about to begin.
Inside one of the blood-soaked train cars, the world suddenly shifted for Sakonji Urokodaki, Giyu Tomioka, and Obanai Iguro. The monstrous demons that had filled their vision, swarming them with claws and fangs, flickered and vanished. In an instant, the illusion shattered, and reality came crashing down upon them.
A cold wind blew through the broken windows of the train, carrying with it the overwhelming smell of human blood. Their eyes, now clear, took in the scene. The train carriages were filled not with the dissolving ashes of demons, but with the cold, lifeless bodies of men, women, and children. It was a battlefield of absolute carnage, a human slaughterhouse.
What broke them completely was the sight of their own hands. Their Nichirin blades were slick with a thick, dark liquid that was not demon blood. Their uniforms were drenched in it. They looked as if they had just climbed out of a sea of corpses.
Terrifying. This is too terrifying.
What had happened?
The former Water Hashira, Sakonji Urokodaki, the current Water Hashira, Giyu Tomioka, and the Serpent Hashira, Obanai Iguro, felt their faces twist in horror. Their hearts began to hammer against their ribs so violently they could feel the pulse in their ears. Adrenaline surged through them, not from the thrill of battle, but from the sickening chill of comprehension.
We did this.
The demons they had been fighting, the monsters they had cut down with all their strength, had been nothing more than unarmed passengers. The creatures they had perceived as attacking them with weapons had been the train's security guards, men who were now lying dead at their feet. The cause of all of this… was them.
When they first awoke in this chaos, they had assumed they were in Hell, or perhaps trapped in another one of Muzan's illusions. So when they saw figures rushing toward them with what they perceived as malice, they had reacted as they had been trained to for their entire lives. They treated them as demons. The mission of a Demon Slayer is to slay all demons.
They never imagined that this core tenet of their existence would be used against them. Muzan had twisted their perception, turning their greatest strength—their unwavering duty—into a weapon for his own monstrous design. The great mistake had been made. There was no going back.
"Is that…" Urokodaki stammered, his voice trembling as he looked past the carnage.
In the distance, figures were approaching, moving with the unmistakable speed and grace of master swordsmen. Six of them. The remaining six Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps had finally arrived.
At that moment, time seemed to freeze. The three slayers on the train and the six Hashira arriving on the scene stared at each other across the field of death. There were no words, only a stunned, horrified silence. To meet again like this, as comrades on opposite sides of a massacre… it was a cruelty beyond words.
"Ah!"
A choked cry of pure agony escaped Giyu's lips. It was a sound echoed by Obanai and Urokodaki. There was a shared look between the three of them—a flash of shame, anger, humiliation, and unbearable pain. No words could describe the remorse they felt for being used as puppets by Muzan.
The mistake was made. The sin was theirs. And at that moment, they knew there was only one way to atone for it.
In near-perfect unison, they raised their Nichirin blades.
The six arriving Hashira had fought through hell to get here, hoping to save their friends. But they were too late. All they could do was watch in horror as their comrades, their brothers in arms, turned their own swords upon themselves, ending their lives in a final, desperate act of repentance.
The only sound was the soft thud of bodies falling to the floor. In the hearts of the six remaining Hashira, the shock and grief boiled away, leaving behind a cold, volcanic rage aimed at one being. Muzan Kibutsuji.
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