[Prompt: "Life Energy" +41…]
[Prompt: "Life Energy" +37…]
[Demon "Enmu" Blood Demon Arts extracted… "Nen Property Change" +10…]
[Nen Property Change: "Yin Release" unlocked]
[Ability 1: "Dream Parasite." Note: The user can convert Nen into "sleep intent" and, via eye contact or whisper, forcibly hypnotize others, dragging them into a dream of the user's design…]
[Ability 2: "Dream Domain"… detected overlap with "Gate of Cognition," beginning upgrade…]
[Prompt: Upgrade complete…]
[Ability 2: "Wide-Scope Dream Gate." Note: The user can, through dreams, randomly open doors and pull people into dreamspace. Targets are randomly chosen and not under the user's conscious selection…]
[Prompt: Demon "Rui" Blood Demon Arts extracted… "Nen Shape Change" +20…]
[Ability: "Thread Steelification." Note: Overlaps with "Hardening"… "Hardening"+20…]
System messages chattered like rain on banana leaves.
Rui's head flew off, tumbling through the air, eyes full of disbelief as he stared at Roy.
In Roy's hand, the blade turned red—then ignited, two long dragons of flame roaring outward as he rose to his full height. Akaza's pupils shrank; he pulled back his fist, his guard going instantly to maximum.
"So hot…"
In the corner of the carriage, the eye demon blinked once, then shivered and tried to scurry away. The thought had barely formed before Muzan crushed it, forcing the eye to stay cowering in the shadows and continue watching.
"Flame"… or "Sun Breathing"?
Kibutsuji Muzan's expression was ugly as he stared at Roy through the demon's eye.
Enmu was dead. Rui was dead. That wasn't what mattered.
Akaza was.
"Does Akaza have any chance of winning?"
Kokushibo rested a hand on Kyokokujitsugo and narrowed his eyes, watching the long-haired youth in the carriage, that flaming red mane drifting in the wind. In an instant, his memory dragged him back…
To the day he first discovered that his younger brother Yoriichi had been gifted by the gods, showing sword talent beyond reason.
The same youth.
The same hair color.
The same earrings.
The same overwhelming, effortless brilliance.
The difference was: one understood himself. The other did not.
But either way, both were so far beyond reach that they made you want to give up.
That was the world of true geniuses.
"Why ask me, Muzan-sama?" Kokushibo's voice was low and distant. "The moment you formed that question, you already had your answer, did you not?"
He continued, solemnly:
"Hakuji… is not his match."
"Retreat," Muzan snapped, keeping it short.
Lower Moons could die; he could always make more. But the Upper Moons?
Each had been a rare genius in life, molded by centuries of Muzan's blood and training—a treasure he was loath to waste. The fact none of them had died in all this time said enough.
Unfortunately—
Muzan still didn't fully understand Akaza.
Kokushibo watched the red-browed youth, gold eyes shining, wearing his martial garb, bare-handed and trembling with excitement.
"He won't run," Kokushibo said quietly. "He'll choose to die in battle."
Among the Upper Moons, if there was anyone Tsugikuni Michikatsu genuinely admired, it was Akaza.
They were comrades—and fellow fanatics chasing the absolute limit of martial arts.
Unlike Doma and Hantengu, who became stronger simply to eat people and toy with hearts, Akaza and Kokushibo were, in their own twisted way, far purer.
And reality quickly proved Kokushibo right.
Akaza bent his knees and stomped down.
The running train jolted as if something immense had landed on it.
He looked up at Roy, eyes gleaming, then dropped into his stance—left hand open and forward, right hand clenched behind, breathing in deeply.
"You're strong. I'm glad. Disgusting trash is gone, so…"
"Come. Let's enjoy this fight!"
[Technique Deployment – Compass – Destructive Death!]
Frost-like sigils flared beneath his feet, blooming outward in all directions.
The compass—a field technique. Once activated, Akaza's body and senses became like a needle drawn by invisible magnetic force, continually tracking the enemy's position, movements, and breathing rhythm, searching for weaknesses and openings.
In a way, it resembled Roy's Aura Field—but when Roy saw those snowflake patterns form—
He felt something else.
A heavy, buried sorrow. A grief shoved so deep it had been forgotten—but not erased. Some part of Akaza still refused to let go.
"What's with that look?" Akaza snarled. "Are you pitying me?"
Roy said nothing.
But Akaza could see it in those black eyes—that faint, unbearable pity. The gaze of one standing above, looking down.
Humiliation and rage boiled through him.
"Don't lump me in with that disgusting trash!"
"Destructive Death: Air Type!"
Fists hammered the air like cannons, throwing out shockwaves that crashed toward Roy.
Roy's footwork shifted. Calm, unhurried, he walked forward through the barrage—tilting his head, twisting his waist, stepping just outside each shockwave, his shadow a ghost between Akaza's strikes.
In the Infinity Castle, viewed through the demon eye, Muzan's expression twisted.
He flexed his fingers; his nails stretched, dripping murder.
"He dares defy my orders…"
"Akaza, don't force me to kill you."
Twong— The biwa chimed.
Nakime plucked a string, repositioning the rooms.
Kokushibo stood with his hand still on his sword, silent.
Was this "defiance"… or exhilaration? Or maybe—
a sincere desire to die fighting, as tribute?
"Let him go, Muzan-sama," he said at last.
Muzan's bloody eyes narrowed.
"It's useless, in any case," Kokushibo went on. "You can see it too. That boy—Roy Kamado—evades Hakuji's attacks as if they were nothing. That means…"
"His perception of attacks is superior to Hakuji's."
He paused, then added, voice grave:
"With respect… I suspect the boy can read the hearts of others, much as you do. That would explain how he remains so composed."
"That's enough."
Muzan cut him off with a snarl.
Bulging veins stood out on his forehead. After a long breath, he forced his tone flat.
"I understand."
But his gaze went dark as ink.
On-screen, Akaza was already beyond listening.
He had fallen fully into his frenzy.
"Destructive Death: Leg Type: Crown Splitter!
Leg Type: Explosive Flurry!
Leg Type: Flying Planet Thousand Wheels!
Annihilation! Shatter! Final Form: Blue Silver Chaotic Afterglow—!"
CRACK!
The carriage roof exploded outward under the barrage.
An impact smashed the coupling between carriages. The section Roy and Akaza occupied broke away entirely.
Passengers screamed as the train roared onward into the night.
Akaza threw everything he had at Roy. To him, there was only Roy. Only this one fight. The more he punched, the more excited he became—and the more hopeless it felt.
He was starting to understand why Roy looked at him with pity.
Because it was real.
He was just as weak as all the "trash" he despised.
Pathetically, disgustingly weak.
"Ahahaha! Why won't you fight back?!"
"Come on!"
"KILL ME!"
Tap. Tap.
Footsteps echoed, steady and calm.
They landed directly in Akaza's chest.
Roy casually flicked Akaza's fist aside with a single blade, stepped past his shoulder—
And a thin, subtle line of light flashed briefly, before vanishing.
Akaza felt something cold across his neck.
He turned—
Blood sprayed in an arc.
His body was still lunging forward in a punching motion, but his head had spun one hundred and eighty degrees. His golden eyes now stared not at his target—but at Roy's back.
"You misunderstood," Roy said quietly.
He slid his blade back into the scabbard, back still turned. Above them, the stars glittered in a clear sky, the eternal moon hanging high.
"I wasn't pitying you for you."
"I was pitying you for the woman you loved—Koyuki. For the master you respected—Keizō. And for your father, who killed himself so you wouldn't have to steal anymore."
He turned then, meeting Akaza's fading eyes with that same, soft sorrow.
"If they were still alive, and saw what you've become—this twisted thing they'd never recognize—how much do you think it would break their hearts?"
A moment later, Akaza's head thumped to the ground and rolled.
His body toppled soon after.
He stared at Roy, consciousness dimming, and the world turned into a rushing lantern of memory.
He saw Koyuki again, smiling as she called out "Hakuji."
He saw his master, clapping him on the shoulder, telling him to protect her.
He saw his father, frail and sick, ruffling his hair, pleading with him to stop stealing—and then hanging himself so his son wouldn't have to sin for his sake.
Without realizing it, for the first time since becoming a demon, tears spilled from Akaza's eyes.
He reached for Koyuki's hand. He wanted just one more word with his master. One more embrace from his father.
To be that boy again.
But Koyuki flinched back with disgust.
His master glared at him with bitter disappointment.
His father wouldn't even look at him.
"I don't have a son like you," he said, and slit his own throat.
Akaza's outstretched hand froze.
His mouth opened—but no sound came.
The ground beneath him tore open into a yawning, endless dark. Hundreds of hands reached out, grabbing him, dragging him down.
Only then did he fully understand:
He wasn't Hakuji anymore, the loyal, earnest boy who'd loved so fiercely.
He was Akaza. A demon steeped in blood, who trampled the weak.
This is all… his fault. Kibutsuji Muzan…
You made me like this!
The lantern went out.
Akaza's eyes snapped open one last time.
Rage and clarity surged through him as he glared at the eye demon.
"It's your fault!"
BOOM!
Muzan's blood inside him detonated.
For an instant, it rained blood in the Infinity Castle.
The eye demon shrank in on itself.
In its pupil, Muzan's reflection wavered—drenched in blood, ashamed and furious.
Pitiful. Ridiculous. Tragic. Inevitable.
Roy's gaze shifted calmly toward the corner of the carriage.
He raised two fingers and pointed at the eye demon.
Silently, he mouthed:
"Next is you."
His black pupils suddenly glazed over with a thin veil of gray Nen.
From Muzan's vantage, something brushed his mind. The Demon King, who had rampaged for a thousand years, suddenly felt his lids grow heavy.
He yawned.
[Nen of Yin – "Dream Parasite"]
Through eye contact, he pushed sleep into his target.
"Sleep," Roy murmured to the eye demon.
Muzan slipped into a dream.
In the dream, he was back in that bamboo grove, the wind rustling through the stalks. Tamayo at his side. And ahead—
A red-haired swordsman in wooden clogs, walking slowly toward him.
Just like before, he chose to self-destruct immediately.
"Tsugikuni Yoriichi! You again!"
"After all these years… you're still this ugly."
A single flaming sword stroke fell like a verdict.
"BOOM!"
This time, Muzan exploded even faster than in the past—into three thousand six hundred pieces, right there in the Infinity Castle.
Right in front of Kokushibo.
"Namu—"
The biwa's string snapped under Nakime's fingers.
Blood mist spread through that formless, directionless space.
For a heartbeat, none of them spoke.
"Pop—"
The dream cut off the moment Muzan "shattered." His consciousness snapped back a second later.
He clawed himself back together, shamefully reconstituting his body from scraps of flesh.
"You ate Enmu?!"
He finally caught on, glaring at the image of Roy in the carriage.
His words jolted Kokushibo.
"That's Enmu's Blood Demon Art," Muzan hissed. "You're human. How did you learn it?"
With the same method as demons—
by eating?
A human devouring a demon?!
Unheard of.
Kokushibo's hand tightened on his sword. For some reason, the back of his neck felt cold.
In Car 7, the train segment Roy and Akaza had torn free, the car skidded along the rails and then off them, shrieking into the night.
Roy stood at the broken end, hair blazing in the wind like a living flame.
He flipped the short blade into its sheath with a sigh.
"Kept that hidden for so long, and you still sniffed it out. Yes…"
He ran his tongue over his lips, eyes shining with a predator's promise.
"Wash up and wait for me, Muzan."
"I'll be paying you a visit soon."
BOOM.
The eye demon exploded.
For an instant, Roy thought he heard someone somewhere screaming, panicked and off-balance—
"Emergency meeting!"
"Everyone, back to the Infinity Castle. NOW!"
The image cut out as the eye burst.
In the wrecked train car, only Roy remained, standing in the wind with a faint smile on his face.
[Prompt: "Life Energy" +112]
[Upper Moon Three "Akaza" Blood Demon Arts extracted…]
[Destructive Death: Compass. Note: A "directional" sensing formation that tracks the opponent's position and weaknesses. High overlap with [Aura Field]; upgrading…]
[Prompt: Upgrade complete… "Aura Field"+30…]
[Note: Current "Aura Field" radius increased from 140 → 170 meters.]
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