Yoriichi, I Was Right

Yuko had a nightmare. She dreamed that Kokushibo had still become a demon.

She jolted awake, drenched in sweat.

Yuko panted lightly, her mouth dry and parched.

Feeling around in the dark, she found the teacup on the table. Only after draining a cup did she relax slightly.

What occupied her mind by day haunted her dreams by night.

Yuko let out a long breath and estimated how long Kokushibo's mission should have taken.

The place Kokushibo had gone to was not far away, only two days' journey.

He had already been gone for a week. If things had gone smoothly, he should have returned by now.

Could it be...

Yuko shook her still-groggy head and mocked herself.

She really was good at scaring herself.

She returned to bed and was about to lie down when a faint breeze suddenly swept in, and a figure abruptly appeared in the room.

The hairs all over Yuko's body stood on end. Bracing herself against the bed, she flipped into the corner and took down her blade.

Facing the shadow, Yuko shouted, "Who's there?!"

The shadow ignored her. Instead, it walked to the table and lit the oil lamp.

By that faint light, Yuko recognized the visitor's clothes and silhouette. It was Kokushibo.

"Older Brother, you'll scare someone to death doing that! Breaking into a girl's room in the middle of the night will get you mistaken for a pervert!" Yuko relaxed and complained.

Yet just as she was about to return her Nichirin Blade to its stand, Kokushibo, holding the lamp, turned around. What appeared before Yuko was an evil demon with six eyes.

Yuko's pupils suddenly contracted. Her whole body turned icy cold, as though she had fallen into an ice pit.

Was she still dreaming?

Then why was she so clearheaded now?

After a long silence, Yuko's teeth trembled as she forced out a few words.

"Why?"

Kokushibo's face was expressionless... No, his face was now covered by six eyes, and no human expression could be seen.

Kokushibo spoke calmly. "Yuko, become a demon too. Then, whether it's your lungs..."

"I'm asking why!"

Yuko's furious voice cut him off. Like a beast on the verge of madness, her hand gripping the sword trembled without stop, nearly unable to resist drawing it against him.

As a modern person, Yuko was broad-minded.

Demons like Nezuko, who had been forced to become one, or Tamayo, who had eaten many people after becoming a demon but came to her senses and had been atoning ever since—

Yuko could understand them and treat them kindly.

But becoming a demon of one's own accord was absolutely unforgivable.

This was different from the struggle between good and evil in martial arts novels. Even among so-called evil sects, there might be people who had never done a single bad thing.

But demons were different. Demons would definitely eat people!

No one with a normal moral compass could accept that!

Looking at Kokushibo's ugly appearance, Yuko did not feel afraid. She only felt overwhelming anger.

What followed was a bone-deep chill.

After living together for more than twenty years, did Yuko truly feel nothing for her family?

Of course she did.

Although Kokushibo was far too stubborn in many ways, making Yuko lose her temper every day and rant about hanging him from some sweet potato, he had also been a kind and gentle older brother to his sister.

Even emotionally slow Yoriichi had always regarded Kokushibo as a gentle older brother.

She had clearly tried so hard to talk him out of it...

Yuko's nose stung. Sensing tears about to spill from her eyes, she clenched her teeth and forcibly held them back.

Ignoring the anger on her face, Kokushibo spoke again. "If you become a demon, you'll have endless years to temper your sword skills. The pain in your lungs will also be easily cured."

Crack—

Yuko slowly drew her Nichirin Blade, her expression dark. "I did not come into this world to become a demon."

She wanted to... cut off Kokushibo's head!

Yuko softly exhaled white breath. "Snow Breathing: Sixth Form: Snow Drifting Ten Thousand Miles!"

The raised Nichirin Blade came down in a powerful slash. A terrifying white wave of sword energy reached Kokushibo in an instant, as if it would split him in two the next moment.

Clang—

A clear ring of steel sounded.

In Kokushibo's hand, a flesh-and-blood sword covered in eyes and reeking of decay forcibly stopped Yuko's Nichirin Blade.

This was the long sword Kokushibo had forged from his own flesh and blood, named Vast Sorrows, God Forsaken.

The rotten stench from the blade nearly made Yuko faint. The gloom in her eyes was almost overflowing.

"You... ate people, didn't you?!"

Only demons that had eaten people carried such a stench.

Without giving Kokushibo a chance to answer—

"Snow Breathing: Fifth Form: Snow Run."

Yuko's figure vanished into the dark night as a streak of white light, like lingering snow in the wind, scattering as the wind passed.

Snow Run was not an attacking Sword Style, but footwork that could conceal one's figure.

Yet the next moment, Kokushibo extended Vast Sorrows, God Forsaken behind him without even turning his head.

Clang!

Yuko's eyes narrowed slightly. The wrist that was slashing toward Kokushibo's neck trembled constantly, but she could not advance even an inch.

Kokushibo gently deflected her attack, and the last trace of shame in his heart faded away.

He had become stronger.

He could feel it clearly.

Pushed away, Yuko adjusted her posture in midair. The instant her feet hit the ground, she kicked off hard and shot toward Kokushibo like a human cannonball.

"Snow Breathing: Seventh Form..." Her throat itched as she breathed forcefully, and waves of pain surged through her lungs. Yuko's vision went black as though she were anemic, and she crashed dazedly into a table nearby.

"Cough, cough..."

A few drops of blood fell from Yuko's lips. She had no time to care about them and hurriedly got up, raising her head to look at Kokushibo.

But Kokushibo was no longer where he had been. Yuko was startled and quickly turned around.

"One day, you'll understand."

Those were the last words she heard before losing consciousness.

Kokushibo lightly struck the back of her neck and knocked her out.

Yuko was only twenty-three. She still had three years before the limit imposed by the mark. The closer people came to death, the more they feared it.

Yuko, who dreamed of becoming the strongest swordsman, would surely choose the same path as him when faced with life and death.

Yoriichi, I was right.

Almost at the very moment Yuko lost consciousness, Yoriichi, who was out on a mission, encountered the Demon King in a bamboo forest.

The Demon King wore magnificent clothes, with a woman bearing a faintly sorrowful expression following behind him.

The moment they met, Yoriichi understood.

Perhaps the reason he had been born with talent so far beyond ordinary people was to defeat this so-called progenitor of demons.

The Demon King overflowed with violent life force, like lava erupting from a volcano, boiling furiously as if it wanted to devour everything.

"I have no interest in swordsmen who use Breathing Techniques anymore," the Demon King, Kibutsuji Muzan, said with a proud smile when they first met.

The instant Muzan finished speaking, his arm split apart into a long whip and slashed at Yoriichi. Its shocking speed and power cut down every bamboo stalk in its path in the blink of an eye.

It was the first time since his birth that Yoriichi had felt a chill run down his spine.

At nearly the same moment, Yoriichi's eyes saw through the truth of Muzan's seven hearts and five brains.

Yoriichi had completed the thirteen forms of Sun Breathing. Rampaging orange-red flames swept across Muzan's entire body in an instant with terrifying power and speed.

When the flames scattered, Muzan supported his severed head, his eyes filled with confusion.

Yoriichi slowly stepped forward with a red Scarlet Blade in hand. There was something he wanted to ask no matter what.

"What do you take life for?"

Veins bulged across Muzan's face, which had turned red-black with rage.

Yoriichi suddenly shifted his gaze to the girl Muzan had brought with him. Rather than step forward to help, she stared expectantly at the decapitated Demon King.

Just as Yoriichi was about to step forward and deal Muzan the final blow, the sound of Muzan gritting his teeth rang out. In an instant, he split into eighteen hundred chunks of flesh and shot in every direction.

Caught off guard, Yoriichi instinctively swung his blade and shattered fifteen hundred chunks in an instant.

But more than three hundred chunks still escaped. Combined, they amounted to roughly the size of a human head.

The sudden turn of events left Yoriichi standing there in a daze.

The girl's crying beside him brought him back to his senses.

"So close. It was so close. He had actually already overcome the weakness of his neck."

The girl knelt on the ground, speaking through gritted teeth as she viciously grabbed her own hair.

"Why won't you die?! You filthy man!"

"Kibutsuji Muzan!"

In her grief and fury, the girl blankly looked at her own hands.

"I'm not dead? Why am I not dead?"

Perhaps Muzan had become so weak that she had temporarily broken free from his control.

She was far too unlike a demon. Yoriichi comforted the panicked girl named Tamayo.

From her, he learned much information about Muzan.

And she said that Kibutsuji Muzan, the progenitor of demons, likely would not show himself again before his death.

After Yoriichi made an agreement with Tamayo to help defeat Muzan, his comrades from the Demon Slayer Corps found him.

A swordsman from the Rengoku Family, the Flame Hashira, grabbed Yoriichi's arms and shook them. "Kokushibo became a demon and killed the master. Yuko fought him and is still unconscious."