Chapter 85 85: Slaying Upper Moon Six

"Who...?"

Daki sensed the presence behind her too late.

A figure had appeared on the road ahead, blocking the path out of Yoshiwara. The night wind tore at his haori, and the scars across his face looked especially vicious beneath the moonlight.

She did not hesitate.

The sashes behind her lashed forward like living blades, slicing through the darkness with shrill whistles.

The man answered with a single step.

His Nichirin sword flashed.

His body spun into a horizontal tornado, the cutting wind tearing through the street in a violent rush.

"Wind Breathing: First Form, Dust Whirlwind Cutter!"

The sashes were shredded in an instant.

Before Daki could even widen her eyes, the gale had already reached her.

A clean line passed through her neck.

Her head flew from her shoulders.

For a heartbeat, the world spun.

Then Daki's head hit the ground, rolling across the dust. Her vision flipped upside down, and from that distorted angle, she saw the back of the swordsman who had cut her down.

Her thoughts nearly collapsed.

How?

How are they all this strong?

Is this one a Hashira too?

I was about to escape...

Brother stayed behind for me...

I was supposed to get away...

Her lips trembled. Rage, fear, and grief tangled together until they turned into a shrill wail.

"I won't accept this! I won't accept it!"

Behind her, Sanemi Shinazugawa turned around, sword still in hand. He looked down at Daki's severed head, his expression somewhere between disgust and disbelief.

"You're really an Upper Moon?" he said. "Weak as hell."

...

On the other side of Yoshiwara, Tanjirou slowly approached Gyutaro with Asuramaru in hand.

Gyutaro's head lay on the ground, his body collapsed nearby. Even decapitated, the demon's eyes remained sharp, vicious, and burning with hatred.

Tanjirou stopped in front of him.

For a moment, he did not raise his sword.

His gaze was gentle, yet heavy.

"You love your sister very much," Tanjirou said softly. "You're proud of her. You feel honored by her. I can tell."

Gyutaro's expression twisted.

"What do you know?!"

His voice came out like a curse.

The blood inside his headless body began to churn.

It rose from the corpse in writhing streams, congealing into countless blood-red sickles. The air filled with a sharp metallic stench. Even with his head severed, Gyutaro intended to detonate every last drop of his power.

If he was going to die, then he would tear open as much time as possible.

He would stall.

He would buy Daki one more chance to escape.

Tanjirou's eyes narrowed.

He raised the Nichirin sword in his other hand.

But before he could strike, Gyutaro's body froze.

His eyes widened.

"Ume!"

The blood sickles faltered.

His body began crumbling from the edges, ash peeling away into the night.

Daki's head had been severed.

Their condition for death had been met.

Tanjirou understood immediately, but he did not relax. He kept his sword ready and glanced toward the direction Daki had fled.

"Was it Mr. Shinazugawa?"

The self-destruction had not fully stopped yet. Blood still trembled around Gyutaro's body, threatening to erupt.

Tanjirou looked back at him.

After a brief silence, he lowered his sword.

"You want to see your sister one last time, don't you?" he asked. "I'll take you to her."

Gyutaro's eyes shifted toward him.

For the first time, something other than hatred flickered there.

It was faint.

It was ugly, stubborn, and buried under years of resentment.

But it was there.

At that moment, a cat's meow came from behind them.

Tanjirou turned.

A small cat stood in the shadows, its eyes gleaming faintly in the dark.

Mr. Yushiro's cat.

Tanjirou hurried over at once. He knelt, pulled a small folding knife from his pack, and carefully drew blood from Gyutaro's headless body before placing the sample into the container prepared for that purpose.

"Thank you for your hard work," Tanjirou said.

The cat meowed again.

Then, just as quietly as it had appeared, it vanished into the darkness.

Behind him, the violent blood around Gyutaro's body gradually settled. The headless corpse stopped trying to detonate. Gyutaro stared at Tanjirou with clenched teeth, every word seeming to scrape out of him.

"Take... me..."

Tanjirou's expression softened.

He sheathed Asuramaru, then carefully lifted Gyutaro's head with both hands.

"Leave it to me," he said. "I'll make sure you see each other one last time."

Gyutaro made a muffled sound from between his hands, but the words were too broken to understand.

Tanjirou did not ask him to repeat them.

He simply ran.

The streets of Yoshiwara blurred around him as he rushed toward the edge of the town.

A moment later, he saw Sanemi coming from the opposite direction, Daki's head in one hand and his sword in the other.

Sanemi slowed when he saw Tanjirou also carrying a severed head. His gaze dropped to Gyutaro's eyes, where the characters of Upper Moon Six were still visible.

"So that one's Upper Moon Six too?" Sanemi asked. "Are there any more?"

"It's over," Tanjirou answered honestly. "They only die when both heads are cut off. At least for this last moment... please let them be together."

Sanemi's fierce eyes snapped toward him.

"Demons don't deserve your pity, brat."

Even so, he tossed Daki's head over.

Tanjirou caught it steadily.

Sanemi turned away with a scowl, as if the sight annoyed him too much to keep watching.

Tanjirou looked at his back and bowed his head.

"Thank you, Mr. Sanemi."

Sanemi did not answer.

Tanjirou placed both heads gently on the ground at the edge of the street. Then he stepped away, hiding himself at a respectful distance.

Gyutaro and Daki faced one another.

The two severed heads lay there beneath the night sky, their bodies gone, their lives already burning down into ash.

Tanjirou did not intrude on their final words.

He only listened quietly as their voices rose, broke, and faded.

He watched as the ash took them, bit by bit, until Upper Moon Six disappeared completely from the world.

When nothing remained, Tanjirou lowered his gaze.

The sight of Gyutaro and Daki made him think of himself and Nezuko.

A brother.

A sister.

A bond twisted by demons and blood.

He turned slightly and looked at the wooden box on his back.

His eyes did not waver.

"Nezuko," he whispered, "your brother will definitely turn you back into a human."

Inside the sword, Asuramaru heard the system's voice ring out.

[Ding! Detected intense negative emotions from Upper Moon Six, Gyutaro, before death. Gained 10,000 emotion points.]

[Detected intense negative emotions from Upper Moon Six, Daki, before death. Gained 5,000 emotion points.]

[Detected intense negative emotions from Muzan Kibutsuji. Gained 5,000 emotion points.]

[Gained 11,000 Demon Power. Thirty percent will be automatically fed back to the Sword Master.]

The notification faded.

A moment later, Tanjirou's body filled with power again.

Demon Power flowed through his limbs and bones like a tide. His muscles, blood, and organs strengthened at a visible pace. The foundation of his body rose once more, steady and relentless.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the current Tanjirou had already been tempered beyond ordinary human limits.

His physique was approaching steel.

Strength, speed, endurance, reaction time, recovery, every part of him had crossed boundaries that humans were never meant to cross.

Even without the Transparent World, Asuramaru estimated that if Tanjirou entered Demonization now, he could probably fight Muzan Kibutsuji head-on for a time.

Give him a little longer, and killing Muzan would no longer be a dream.

It would become inevitable.

The problem was Muzan himself.

With that creature's caution, he would most likely hide inside the Infinity Castle and wait until Tanjirou died of old age before showing himself again.

So they had to lure him out.

And for that, two conditions were necessary.

The first was Muzan's obsession with becoming a perfect being.

To achieve that, he needed Nezuko, the demon who would one day conquer the sun.

But Nezuko alone was not enough.

Muzan could wait a hundred years if he had to.

The second condition was the medicine that could turn demons back into humans.

If Muzan refused to appear, he would miss his only chance to become perfect. Worse, once that medicine spread, the future would no longer have a place for demons.

Not for the Upper Moons.

Not for Muzan.

Not for anyone.

If he came out, Tanjirou would have the chance to kill him.

If he stayed hidden, then Asuramaru would simply have to keep gathering emotion points and place his hope in the system.

As if waiting for that exact thought, the system spoke.

[Ding! Pay 100,000 emotion points, and I can open a passage to the Infinity Castle, delivering you directly in front of Muzan Kibutsuji.]

Asuramaru fell silent.

Then he gave a dry laugh.

"You really know how to sell things."

.....

[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]

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