A Paradise?

He went to the window and looked out at Konoha under the night sky. Shinji reviewed the village's layout in his head once again.

He had spent the past few days considering all kinds of possibilities for the "invasion" and thinking up ways to deal with them.

For example, he'd memorized Konoha's layout. He knew where all the important places were—the Hokage Building, the ANBU Building, the hospital, and so on. He could find them even with his eyes closed.

If an "invasion" really happened, he could respond immediately.

After all, this was Konoha. No matter who the invaders were, Konoha wouldn't stand by and do nothing. Shinji could use that to his advantage.

Next.

During the two days he'd lived alone, he'd gradually gotten used to having his Mangekyō Sharingan activated. He'd also carefully explored how to use it without draining too much of his Dojutsu.

With these Mangekyō to rely on, he had at least a little confidence.

Finally.

To be safe, he'd spent money on quite a few ninja tools.

Twenty shuriken, four kunai forged from fine steel, and thirty Explosive Tags were all neatly packed in the pouch at his waist.

Whether they came in handy or not, it couldn't hurt to be prepared.

Time passed, bit by bit.

Click.

With a faint sound, the clock's hour hand finally pointed to twelve.

Shinji gripped a kunai and warily scanned his surroundings, searching for a possible "invasion." But nothing happened.

A few minutes passed. He frowned slightly. "Could this be a prank?"

Before the words had left his mouth, he vanished from the room with a whoosh.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

When Shinji came to, he found himself in an unfamiliar palace. Explosions rumbled in his ears from time to time.

He crouched low and crept to a window to look outside.

In the palace courtyard, over a hundred guards armed with bows and swords were surrounding a gigantic monster. Its body was a dark blue-green, its frame bloated, and its upper body was covered in arms.

"Stop it!"

"Protect the prince!"

"Don't let it reach the main hall!"

As shouts rose and fell, the guards kept launching attacks against the monster.

Arrows flew like raindrops. Some even had lit Explosive Tags tied to them.

But none of the attacks slowed the monster in the slightest.

It was riddled with arrows, yet didn't seem to care. Limbs blown off by the Explosive Tags quickly regenerated before their eyes.

Clearly, ordinary attacks had no effect on it.

Every time the countless arms on its upper body reached out, they caught a guard with uncanny precision and dragged him closer.

Then it swallowed him whole!

"Isn't that the Hand Demon?"

Shinji was hiding in a side hall beside the courtyard. He recognized the monster at once: it was the Hand Demon from Demon Slayer, the one that had eaten more than a dozen of Tanjiro's fellow trainees at the Final Selection.

But the Hand Demon before him was clearly much larger than the one he remembered. Its body was bloated, and it reeked so badly that the stench was unbearable.

A sharp, bloody smell soon filled the courtyard. Severed limbs lay everywhere, making the place look like hell on earth.

"Something's wrong!"

Though his heart was pounding, Shinji still noticed something from his hiding place.

As the Hand Demon devoured the guards, its body grew larger. Its attack speed, strength, and even its regenerative abilities all improved noticeably.

There was no doubt that devouring the guards made it stronger—and the change was dramatic.

The demons in Demon Slayer really could grow stronger by eating people, but that kind of growth took time.

The Hand Demon before him was visibly swelling as it ate. Shinji wondered if that had something to do with the Chakra contained in the guards' bodies.

"A demon with terrifying regenerative abilities, and now it has Chakra too..."

Just thinking about it sent a chill through him and made his scalp prickle.

In the courtyard,

perhaps sensing how quickly its strength was growing, the Hand Demon began eating people even faster.

It gulped down the guards, making sickening noises. "So delicious! The people here are so delicious! Ooh~ Ah~!"

"So this thing is the 'invader'?"

Watching the guards dwindle rapidly, Shinji forced himself to stay calm.

Unless you targeted their weaknesses, ordinary attacks had very little effect on demons.

The fearless guards had wounded, slashed, and blown apart the Hand Demon countless times, but none of it could kill it. As long as it devoured them, it could quickly recover its strength.

Fortunately, Shinji knew the demons' weaknesses from Demon Slayer.

The greatest weakness was undoubtedly sunlight. Under normal circumstances, even the strongest demon would turn to ash if exposed to the sun.

Besides sunlight, another weakness was the neck.

Decapitating a demon with a Nichirin Blade was the Demon Slayer Corps' most common way of killing them. Demons also feared a plant called Wisteria.

But Shinji had neither a Nichirin Blade nor Wisteria.

And it was only just past midnight. Dawn was still a long way off.

"What do I do?"

Shinji's head throbbed. He turned his gaze back to the courtyard.

Judging from the guards' clothes and the Explosive Tags they used, this place was probably still in the Shinobi World. He guessed it might be the palace of some Daimyo.

The guards' willingness to fight the Hand Demon to the death supported that guess.

And judging by the battle, the Hand Demon was strong!

That didn't mean it was impossible to fight. The guards had already severed or blown off its arms more than a dozen times. Once, they'd even blown away half its body.

But injuries that would be fatal to an ordinary creature did little to the Hand Demon.

Meanwhile, it could devour the guards and rapidly grow stronger. In the short time Shinji had been watching, its body had swelled another size. From a distance, it looked like a moving mountain of flesh.

"Why do the people here smell so good? Ah... glug, glug... so sweet!"

The Hand Demon slaughtered the guards as it made chilling chewing sounds.

"Damn it! What kind of monster is this?"

"Where are the reinforcements? Why haven't they arrived?"

"Don't eat me!"

Amid the roars and cries, the guards' resistance gradually weakened.

Hiss.

Shinji's expression turned grim as he watched the Hand Demon devour the last guard.

Even just moving made the Hand Demon rumble like a landslide, trembling the ground beneath it. The buildings in its path crumbled at the slightest touch, as if they were made of tofu.

Now it seemed to have its eye on the main hall not far away.

Dragging its bloated body, it lumbered toward it one step at a time.

Shinji, still in the side hall, felt a little relieved. "It doesn't seem to have noticed me yet."

Whoosh.

The moment Shinji let his guard down, an arm suddenly shot out from the Hand Demon's back. A fetid gust swept in with it as it smashed through the wall and grabbed for Shinji, who was hiding behind it.

"What?!"

Before he could react, the Hand Demon had him in its grasp.

The arm holding Shinji quickly retracted, hoisting him into the air and bringing him before the monster.

"Ohoho! I smelled you a long time ago. You smell better than all of them—so much better! I can't help drooling!"

The Hand Demon stared at Shinji with a crazed look. Saliva really was dripping from its mouth.

Shinji felt like throwing up.

Suddenly, the Hand Demon seemed to sense something. Its already deformed face grew even more frenzied. "So you're the 'light' of this world! Don't send me away!"

"Light?"

From the Hand Demon's reaction, Shinji realized his identity seemed to be very special.

Its countless arms swayed and writhed around it. The Hand Demon looked more and more like a fiend as it lifted Shinji above its gaping maw. "If I eat you, I'll be able to stay here forever. This place is my paradise!"

"Paradise?" Shinji spat and said coldly, "Do you have some kind of misunderstanding about the Shinobi World? This place is hell!"

Before he'd finished speaking, Shinji's eyes turned crimson.

New book—please show it some love!