Chapter 100 100: Muzan’s Rout

Now.

Muzan moved.

The shadow behind Tanjirou split open as Kibutsuji Muzan lunged from the darkness. His right arm twisted, flesh swelling and stretching into a grotesque whip. Halfway through the strike, it divided again, two blades of living meat tearing through the air with impossible speed.

The range was perfect.

The timing was perfect.

With Kokushibo and Akaza pinning Tanjirou in place, the attack should have carved him apart before he could even turn his head.

But at that instant, Tanjirou's eyes sharpened.

"So you finally showed yourself."

Black smoke erupted from his body like a surging tide.

The force of it blasted outward, forcing Kokushibo and Akaza back at the same time. Muzan's fleshy whips struck the smoke and stopped dead, as though they had crashed into an invisible wall.

Muzan's face changed.

"He was holding back?"

The realization struck him at once.

Tanjirou had been waiting.

All this time, all those wounds, all that exhaustion, all that stubborn refusal to leave the mansion, it had all been bait.

A trap set specifically for him.

Muzan's eyes flickered with murderous hesitation.

They had exchanged blows enough times by now. He had measured Tanjirou's strength, his limits, his endurance. With Kokushibo and Akaza holding him down, victory should still be possible.

Almost certain, even.

But almost certain was not enough.

A ninety-nine percent chance of victory still left one percent for death.

And to Muzan, that one percent was no different from walking willingly into the sun.

Before he could decide, a sharp sensation ran through his whip.

It felt like a needle had pierced into his cells.

Muzan withdrew his arm at once.

Something was inside him.

A strange substance was trying to destroy his demonic body from within, corroding the very foundation of his cells.

No.

Not destroy.

Reverse.

His pupils shrank.

The medicine that turns demons back into humans?

A flash of panic crossed his face. Fortunately, the dose was too small. Muzan immediately began breaking it down, his flesh writhing as he crushed the invading substance before it could spread any further.

When he looked up again, the black smoke was thinning.

Tanjirou stood where he had been before.

Every wound on his body had vanished.

His torn clothing still showed the traces of battle, but the body beneath it had been restored completely. He held Asuramaru in both hands, his breathing calm, his eyes fixed on Muzan.

"Asuramaru," he said quietly, "I'm counting on you."

Inside the sword, Asuramaru's voice answered at once.

"Leave it to me. I've been waiting for this day for far too long."

Demon Power surged.

It flooded Tanjirou's limbs, bones, blood, and nerves, pouring into every corner of his body without restraint.

The Bright Red Nichirin Sword blazed in his hands.

The Slayer Mark burned across his forehead.

The Transparent World opened.

Demonization spread through him.

And then, on top of it all, Asuramaru forced open Ittō Shura.

For the first time, he pushed everything to its absolute limit.

Tanjirou's presence exploded.

He did not roar. He did not shout. He simply stood there, but the pressure radiating from him made the air tremble.

Kokushibo's six eyes widened.

Akaza's stance stiffened.

Even Muzan felt a cold, primal terror crawl through his chest.

Tanjirou slowly turned toward him.

"Kibutsuji Muzan."

His voice was low, but it carried through the courtyard like a bell.

"Why do you steal from others? Why do you trample on life? Why can't you understand that once a life is lost, it never comes back?"

The flames along Asuramaru brightened.

"I will never forgive what you've done."

His grip tightened.

"I will kill you here."

For a moment, Muzan could not see Tanjirou.

He saw another man.

A man whose presence had burned itself into the deepest scars of his soul. A man who had once looked down at him with those same merciless eyes and asked him what he thought life was.

Yoriichi Tsugikuni.

Fear took hold.

It seized Muzan's heart and squeezed.

Run.

The instinct screamed through every cell of his body.

Run.

Staying here meant death.

"This damned ghost!"

Muzan turned without hesitation and fled from the Butterfly Mansion.

"Kokushibo! Akaza! Hold him!"

Kokushibo did not move for a heartbeat.

He, too, saw that figure.

The younger brother he had chased for centuries.

The younger brother he had never surpassed.

"Are you truly his reincarnation?" Kokushibo murmured. "Yoriichi..."

Tanjirou's eyes saw through everything.

The beating hearts of the demons. The shifting flow of their muscles. The movement of their blood, their organs, their nerves. Their weak points laid bare before him as though the world itself had become transparent.

More than that, he finally understood.

The Hinokami Kagura was not simply a dance.

It had always existed for one purpose.

To slay Muzan Kibutsuji.

The twelve forms were not separate techniques. Linked together, one after another, they formed a continuous cycle.

A circle with no end.

Perhaps that was the Thirteenth Form.

The stillness broke.

Akaza moved first.

He clenched both fists, his fighting spirit blazing with desperation.

"Destructive Death, Final Form: Blue Silver Chaotic Afterglow!"

He leaned forward, then erupted off the ground. His fists blurred, preparing to unleash a storm of ultra-high-speed strikes.

Tanjirou only glanced at him.

Flames roared along Asuramaru.

At the same time, lightning flashed in Tanjirou's eyes.

"Hinokami Kagura: Dance Flash."

His figure vanished.

Akaza did not even sense him pass.

A single burning line crossed the air.

Then Akaza's head fell.

His eyes widened only after his cheek struck the ground.

"H-how...?"

His voice trembled.

"How is this... possible?"

His consciousness began to blur.

The will to fight that had driven him for so long slipped from his grasp. Before that overwhelming slash, before that monstrous speed, he finally understood.

He could no longer reach this opponent.

He had lost.

Then, in the haze, a pair of gentle hands touched his face.

"That's enough, Hakuji."

The voice was soft as spring water.

Akaza's eyes shook.

He looked up.

Before him stood the one person he had never been able to let go of.

For a long moment, he only stared.

Then he broke.

The demon known as Akaza disappeared from his face. What remained was a man who had spent too long lost in blood and battle.

He threw himself into her embrace, sobbing as centuries of grief finally tore free.

His body crumbled.

Ash drifted into the night.

Not far away, Kokushibo watched in silence.

One slash.

Akaza had fallen to a single slash.

Yet Kokushibo did not retreat.

He raised his flesh-forged katana, his six eyes steady. If death stood before him, then he would meet it with his sword in hand.

"Moon Breathing, Fourteenth Form: Catastrophe, Tenman Crescent Moon."

A massive web of intersecting slashes burst outward, sweeping across everything in front of him. Crescent blades bloomed within the storm, countless, chaotic, and deadly.

Tanjirou charged straight into it.

"Hinokami Kagura: Solar Flower Thrust."

His flaming sword shortened in the heat haze, rings of fire coiling around the blade.

"Flying Wheel Blazing Sun."

The strike pierced through the web of moonlit slashes and shattered them one after another.

Then Tanjirou shifted his stance.

"Hinokami Kagura: Solar Halo Dragon, Blaze Dance."

The flames gathered.

Two blazing dragons coiled around Asuramaru and roared forward.

They swallowed Kokushibo whole.

His body was torn apart within the flames, slashed into pieces before he could regenerate. His head was cleaved into several sections, yet his will held his crumbling body together for a few final breaths.

In those last moments, Kokushibo no longer saw Tanjirou.

He saw Yoriichi.

The brother he had envied.

The brother he had hated.

The brother he had wanted to become.

Had he become a demon because he feared death?

Because he desired strength?

No.

In the end, what he had wanted was terribly simple.

He had wanted to stand where Yoriichi stood.

But this battle had taught him the same truth that had haunted him for centuries.

No matter how long he lived, no matter how much he struggled, the world would never lack monsters beyond his reach.

He was only dust beneath the sun.

Kokushibo's body finally collapsed into ash.

When the wind passed, only his samurai robes remained.

And within them lay a broken bamboo flute, split cleanly in two.

Tanjirou looked at the places where Akaza and Kokushibo had vanished.

There was sorrow in his eyes.

But it did not weaken him.

It became resolve.

He turned sharply, Asuramaru burning in his hands.

"Asuramaru," Tanjirou said, "which way did Muzan run?"

.....

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