Hearing the sound, I rushed in front of him. A faint "click" echoed, and suddenly a head appeared in my hand out of nowhere.
"Wh… who is it?!"
A panicked voice came from the head—the ghost I had just fought.
The moment I grabbed him, I pulled his head off. His body collapsed to the ground and writhed weakly, pressing against the floor as if struggling to escape.
I ignored the ghost's protests. Pressing my five fingers onto his head with a bit of force, the skull shattered instantly, black blood gushing out and staining my hand.
"Tch… disgusting. I should've brought the knife earlier."
I wiped my hand with a handkerchief, then activated my blood demon art. A red light surged from my hand toward Tokito Yuichiro's frail body.
Yuichiro's eyes were closed. His shallow, uneven breathing slowly steadied. Pain flared through his body, waking his senses, and he groaned as he opened his eyes.
"…Pain…"
He looked at me in panic, but when he realized his wounds were already healing, his tense gaze softened.
I wiped my hands, then bent down to examine him, checking for injuries not touched by the red light. That's when I noticed his left arm was gone.
My heart skipped a beat. I glanced around and saw a bloodless arm floating in a water tank nearby.
I stepped forward and grabbed it. Cold. The blood had long drained away, leaving the tank stained dark red.
"Beast…" My voice was sharp, colder than usual, swallowing the air like a black hole.
Ghosts eating humans wasn't unusual. But treating it like a game… that was monstrous.
I looked at the ghost's body. Its head was crushed, and it began to dissipate slowly, still writhing weakly.
I raised my hand, and red light flowed across it. Above the ghost's fading form, a massive skeletal hand of red energy appeared—not for healing, but as a weapon.
I slammed it down.
Boom!
The skeletal hand crushed the struggling ghost, leaving behind a deep pit of blood, but nothing alive inside.
Turning back to Yuichiro in my arms, I restored my calm smile. I attached his bloodless hand to the broken arm, reconnecting it with the red light.
(The red healing light only repairs; it can't regenerate missing limbs. The broken part must be found and connected first. Luckily, the cells in his arm weren't dead, so once connected, the light could fully restore it.)
Yuichiro felt his left hand move again. He wanted to speak, but no sound came out, fear and confusion on his face.
Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed. I turned and saw a child—Muichiro—with wet hair, clutching an axe smeared with water and blood.
"Elder brother…" he gasped, eyes wide at the sight of Yuichiro in my arms.
"Asshole! You evil ghost! Let my brother go!"
I froze for a moment, then felt a pang of exasperation. "You're welcome… I even reattached his hand…"
He charged with the axe. I set Yuichiro down and dodged, but when Muichiro swung again, I stopped the axe with just two fingers. No matter how hard he tried, it wouldn't budge.
"Asshole!" he shouted.
I snapped the axe with ease, lifted him onto my shoulder, and carried him to Yuichiro. The boy struggled, but he couldn't move me.
Yuichiro, barely conscious, spoke weakly:
"Muichiro… your… nothingness… it's not weakness… it's infinite nothingness…"
Then he collapsed from exhaustion.
"Brother! Don't sleep! You can't sleep!" Muichiro yelled at the top of his lungs. I sighed. He could yell all he wanted—Yuichiro wasn't going to be hurt by it.
I pointed a finger and said gently:
"He's not dead. He's just asleep."
I placed him next to Yuichiro. Muichiro hugged him tightly, finally letting out a long sigh. His body was weak from the fight, just like Yuichiro's.
I extended the red light to Muichiro. His wounds began closing rapidly. Surprised, he tried to speak, but the effort overwhelmed him. He fainted into Yuichiro's arms, clutching his brother instinctively.
Looking at the two of them on the ground, bloodied and bruised, I reached for a haori to cover them—but realized I had forgotten mine in my rush.
"Damn… I forgot my haori…"
I couldn't leave them exposed. Stripping off my own clothes, I covered them evenly. It wasn't too big or small—just enough to keep them warm.
Though my chest felt the cold wind, I quickly called Naruto. A soft pipa note sounded, and in a blink, I vanished. The Demon Slayer Corps would be here soon.
A moment later, the Demon Slayer Corps' logistics unit, "Inu," arrived. Their footsteps woke the Tokito brothers, who had been sleeping in the ruined house.
They were hugging each other, wrapped in black cloth. The upper part of their clothes had faint blue cloud patterns, fading into plain black at the bottom. Even with the house covered in blood, the two looked clean and intact—almost like they didn't belong in that scene.
They stared at each other. After facing death together, tears ran freely. Seeing that the other was safe, there were no words left—just a tight, relieved embrace.
"Inu" had already reached them. He looked at the children, confused by how unharmed they seemed. One team member asked, curious:
"All this blood… and the pit outside—whose blood is it?"
The brothers didn't answer.
Seeing no response, he gave up and was about to ask another question when a calm voice interrupted:
"Leave it for now. The Lord will ask himself."
The hidden team member looked up, saw the speaker, and bowed.
"Yes, Lord Tomioka."
It was Giyu Tomioka. A year or two had passed, but he hadn't changed at all—same hair, same uniform. Maybe he was still as disliked as ever…
Giyu walked past the hidden team and stopped in front of the Tokito brothers. His eyes didn't linger on them, though—they focused on the clothes they wore.
The moment he recognized the scent, his eyes softened. These clothes belonged to a ghost, but one he knew very well. A gentle expression flickered across his usually stern face.
"Brother…" he thought quietly.
Once "Inu" finished cleaning up and confirming the brothers' identities, he took them to Ubuyashiki at the Demon Slayer Corps headquarters.
Infinite City.
"Oh, Tanjiro must be the only one left now."
I lounged in a rocking chair, munching melon seeds like nothing had happened. Only my clothes had changed, and Mingnu wasn't beside me anymore.
Just as I wondered what to do next, a white blur spun under my chair.
I scowled, annoyed at being interrupted, and looked down.
"Wangcai! Are you crazy?!"
It was the big white dog. The spin stopped after my slap, but it didn't seem upset. Tail wagging, tongue out, it huffed happily, then rolled onto its back, belly up, with a piece of paper stuck to it.
"Okay…"
I grabbed the paper, tossed a bone to Wangcai, and waved him off. He trotted away happily, the bone clutched in his mouth.
The note—handwriting unmistakably Kokushibo's—started with polite greetings. The last few lines had his question:
"Lord Muzan, if I encounter a Demon Slayer using the Sun Breathing, should I kill him?"
"Huh? Huh? Huh? Am I… leading Kokushibo astray?"
I froze. Sun Breathing users still existed? That surprised me. But why would Kokushibo ask my opinion instead of acting immediately, like he normally would with a strong opponent?
I sent a clear order into his mind:
"Just act as you see fit. Don't worry about what I think."
I went back to munching melon seeds, crossing my legs comfortably. It wasn't a bad thing that he asked. Ghosts think about survival, about becoming stronger.
In the original story, if Yoriichi was unyielding wood, Kokushibo after becoming a demon was stone—abandoning humanity to surpass his younger brother. But my presence had changed him. Unlike in canon, he sometimes let Demon Slayers live. That had surprised me before.
Shaking my head, I pushed the memories aside and thought about the next steps.
"Tanjiro's story should wrap up in two years. What should we do until then? We can't just sit around."
Tamayo, who didn't hate me. Douma, who still had emotions. Satoshi, Kanae, Kotonoha, Ichiro… an extra "Pillar"… and the reemergence of a Sun Breathing user.
So much had changed because of me. The story wasn't finished, but I could handle it.
"Die!"
"I don't want to die… I want to live to the modern era…"
Thinking about the future, I clenched my jaw and made up my mind.
"Alright! These past two years, I've been busy trying to atone for my sins. Maybe… they'll forgive me in the end."
I grabbed a handful of melon seeds, rose from the rocking chair, and walked toward my room.