Speed.
Giyu Tomioka has taken these two words to a level that is beyond human reach.
The mountains and forests recede, the moonlight flies by.
When he, like a falling blue meteor, broke through the morning mist and finally stopped in front of his master Sakonji Urokodaki's familiar wooden house.
Master, Sakonji Urokodaki, was kneeling motionless in front of the wooden house's porch.
The red Tengu Mask concealed all his expressions, but Giyu Tomioka could sense the heavy sorrow and deathly stillness emanating from his master.
And standing next to the master was another person.
This is someone that Giyu Tomioka should never, and absolutely does not want to, meet under these circumstances.
Kagaya Ubuyashiki Demon Slayer Corps.
He was looking up, his cloudy eyes gazing silently at the sky, a hint of pity and helplessness on his face.
It's over.
Giyu Tomioka's mind went completely blank...
The fact that the Master came, and that the master could exude such despair...
The worst possibility, the terrifying thought he had been desperately denying and resisting ever since he received the news...
It has already become a reality.
Sabito...
He died.
An indescribable chill spread from the soles of his feet throughout his entire body.
His body swayed, and he almost lost his balance.
Just as he was about to be swallowed by this boundless despair and completely collapse.
"Squeak--"
The wooden door behind me was gently pulled open.
A voice he knew all too well, with a tone that was... strange and completely incomprehensible to him, rang out.
"Oh, Mr. Giyu, you're finally back!"
It's Shinobu Kocho.
Giyu Tomioka stiffly turned his head.
He saw Shinobu Kocho standing behind the door, her face displaying an extremely distorted and bizarre expression he had never seen before.
It was an expression that... wanted to laugh, but desperately held it back, until the features were almost contorted together.
Her lips were twitching.
Her shoulders were trembling.
Her eyes were filled with sympathy, pity, and... a thick, almost overflowing, schadenfreude.
Giyu Tomioka: "..."
He was in a terrible and desperate mood, and he had no interest in analyzing why Shinobu Kocho had such a ghost-like expression.
All he wanted to know was where the remains of the Sabito were.
However, Shinobu Kocho's next move completely disrupted the already dwindling rhythm of his grief.
Without a word, she stepped forward, grabbed Giyu Tomioka's wrist, and then, with an irresistible force, dragged him... forcefully into the room.
"Come, come, Mr. Giyu, don't stand outside, come in and see your good friend."
Her voice, strained to suppress laughter, sounded like a duck being choked, filled with a comical tremor.
She dragged Giyu Tomioka along, making him stagger, into the room.
He began to have doubts.
Why is Shinobu Kocho laughing at a time like this?
What's so funny?
Was Sabito's dying words a joke?!
Then he saw it.
In the center of the room, on a bed covered with clean white sheets, lay a person.
One...
She had beautiful, smooth, peach-colored short hair, delicate features like a doll, fair skin, and a slender figure. Even in a large hospital gown, her shapely curves couldn't be hidden.
A stunningly beautiful girl.
At this moment, the girl stared blankly at the ceiling, her face displaying a detached, Buddhist-like expression, as if she had seen through the illusions of the world and had no will to live, as if she were about to ascend to immortality at any moment.
Giyu Tomioka was petrified on the spot.
His brain, like an old computer simultaneously programmed with the instructions "1+1=3" and "the earth is flat," emitted a burst of overloaded buzzing before completely crashing.
What's going on?!
Who am I? Where am I?!
Didn't I come to see the Sabito?
Where is the Sabito?
Who is this excessively beautiful girl on the bed?
Why was she glaring at me with such a murderous look?
"Hehe..."
Seeing such a vivid and wonderful expression appear on Giyu Tomioka's perpetually expressionless face for the first time, Shinobu Kocho finally couldn't hold back anymore.
She covered her mouth and let out a deafening, booming laugh.
"Pfft... Haha... Mr. Giyu... You... Don't look at me like that..."
She laughed as she pointed to the "girl" on the bed who looked utterly dejected, and breathlessly introduced her to him:
"Come on, let me... give you a formal introduction..."
"This is the person you've been longing for, thinking about day and night, and even willing to run yourself to death to see..."
"Your best friend, your only true friend..."
"The future rising star of the Demon Slayer Corps..."
"Qian... Rabbit... Miss... Ah! Haha!"
Giyu Tomioka: "..."
The room fell into a deathly silence.
All that remained was Shinobu Kocho's maniacal laughter and the crackling of electricity emanating from Giyu Tomioka's pitiful brain, which was frantically rebooting, trying to comprehend this absurd scene.
He turned his head blankly, looking at Shinobu Kocho with the gaze one would give an alien.
Then, blankly, he turned his head and looked at the "Miss Sabito" on the bed.
He tried to find even a trace of Sabito's familiar features on that delicate, flawless girl's face.
That peach-colored hair... it really is Sabito's color.
That faint scar that runs from the right corner of his mouth to his right ear... well, it's still there, but on that small face, it looks... kind of cute?
And those eyes...
Those Wisteria- colored eyes, now burning with raging fury, seemed to want to devour him alive; they were filled with rage and murderous intent...
There's no mistake!
It's Sabito!
That's Sabito's gaze!
After arriving at this conclusion that shattered his worldview and completely destroyed his values, Giyu Tomioka asked the boldest and most soul-searching question of his life.
He pointed to the person on the bed and, in an extremely bewildered and confused tone, asked Shinobu Kocho:
"Why... is he wearing women's clothing?"
"Pfft--cough cough!"
Shinobu Kocho's laughter abruptly stopped; she choked on her own saliva, causing a tremendous uproar.
Upon hearing these words, the "Miss Sabito" on the bed finally showed some expression on her otherwise lifeless face.
That was a volcanic rage about to erupt!!
"Tomioka Giyu!"
A clear, melodious voice, yet filled with murderous intent, uttered from between her teeth, each word distinct.
"You! Get! Out! of! My! House!"
Just then, another door to the room was opened.
Tamayo and Kanae Kocho walked in.
"It seems Mr. Giyu already understands the situation."
Looking at the chaotic scene before her, Tamayo wore the same helpless smile she had long been accustomed to.
"Understand? No, I don't understand."
Giyu Tomioka shook his head, pointed to "Sabito" on the bed who was struggling to sit up, ready to fight him, and asked Tamayo with a serious expression:
"What... what happened to him?"
In short,
Kanae Kocho smiled.
"Mr. Sabito's opponent is the newly promoted Upper Rank Seven, codenamed 'Yaoshi'."
"His Blood Demon Art is an extremely rare type, one we've never seen before—a viral Blood Demon Art."
"And Mr. Sabito, unfortunately, contracted a pink virus."
She paused, looking at Giyu Tomioka's face, which still seemed to say "please speak like a human being," and then summarized in a more accessible way:
"The function of this virus is to forcibly change the male sex of an organism at the genetic level into... female."
In other words,
She pointed to Sabito on the bed, who had completely given up struggling and covered her head with the Sabito, and her face shone with a saintly radiance.
"Your best friend, now, inside and out, top to bottom, physically and mentally, is a genuine, unadulterated, adorable girl."
"..."
Giyu Tomioka has completely crashed.
He finally understood.
He finally understood why his master and Master had those expressions.
That's not sadness.
It was... an extremely complex feeling, a mixture of "sympathy," "worry," and "not knowing how to face this absurd reality."
He finally understood why Shinobu Kocho was laughing so happily.
Because of this matter, it's really...
That's fucking hilarious!!
"Is there... any way... to turn it back?"
With great difficulty, Giyu Tomioka asked the last and most crucial question.
There are two solutions.
This time, it was Tamayo who answered him, her expression becoming extremely serious.
"The first, and most direct, method is to kill the caster, Upper Rank Seven, 'Yaoshi'."
"Once he dies, the spell will naturally be broken."
"Second,"
She glanced at the small mound on the bed.
"Capture the 'Yaoshi' alive, extract his blood, conduct reverse engineering, and create an antidote."
However, both methods lead to the same goal.
Tamayo raised her head, looked at Giyu Tomioka, and said, word by word:
"Find him, then kill him, or capture him."
"There is no other way."
Giyu Tomioka remained silent.
The room fell silent again.
A while later...
He slowly turned around and faced the door.
In his blue eyes, all the confusion, bewilderment, and shock vanished in an instant.
Instead, there was an unprecedented... chilling killing intent.
"I see."
He uttered those four words and walked out the door without looking back.
"Hey! Giyu! Where are you going?!"
The blanket was suddenly thrown off, Sabito, her eyes red, shouted at him.
"Go to work."
Giyu Tomioka's steps did not falter for a moment.
"Go find that ghost doctor, and then,"
"Cut off his head."