Tanjiro whipped around, his eyes blazing as he looked toward the source of the voice.
His condition had been steadily deteriorating, and he could no longer maintain his Curse Mark or stay in the Clear World state.
Just then, Orochimaru slowly stepped out from behind a large tree in Tanjiro's line of sight.
He sized Tanjiro up and said in his usual mocking tone, "You look like you're in pretty bad shape. Those people from the Akatsuki Organization must have been tough to deal with!"
Tanjiro glared at him.
Orochimaru continued, "Feeding on fear? That shouldn't be a demon's ability, should it? I'm starting to wonder what exactly happened to you!"
Tanjiro's expression darkened.
He remembered clearly that this man hadn't been among the ninja he'd fought in the previous battle.
Then his brows suddenly knitted together. "Why do you have a demon's scent? I can't be wrong. It's faint and mixed with some other power, but I'd never mistake that scent!"
Orochimaru smiled. "It's the result of my research into your bodies. Not bad, right? By the way, what was the name of that fellow I tortured until he was worse than dead? Upper Rank Four? Or Upper Moon Five? Never mind. It was just a lump of flesh. I'll call it by the label I gave it: 'Specimen 002.'"
There was no doubt about it.
What Tanjiro sensed on Orochimaru was the scent of the modification fluid.
Although Orochimaru had changed bodies once using Living Corpse Reincarnation, he had injected himself with the modification fluid again afterward, so his new body had also been altered by it.
The fluid's essence had been extracted from demon flesh. So even after Jugo's unusual flesh, Natural Energy, and Chakra had been added, a faint trace of the demons' unique scent still