"Clang!"
Without the slightest hesitation, Masahiro drew the sword at his waist, his expression stern.
The man chopping wood remained wholly absorbed in his task, completely ignoring Masahiro's combat-ready stance.
At last, after splitting the final bundle of firewood,
the middle-aged man who looked like a woodcutter spoke.
"You Demon Slayer Corps lot..."
"I've already been doing my best to restrain my urge to eat people."
"I only eat people who get lost in the mountains."
The Demon's tone was somewhat resentful. He had clearly recognized Sarutobi Hiruzen and the others at a glance.
"Yet you still keep making trouble for me."
"If you ask me, I have you to thank for keeping me fed."
"Don't you think?"
Hearing this, Masahiro grew angry. He was a member of the Demon Slayer Corps, too.
"You bastard..."
"What do you take the Demon Slayer Corps swordsmen for?"
The Demon tilted his head at that, as though giving the question some careful thought.
"What do I take you for..."
"Unexpected desserts, I suppose."
"I have to say..."
"The Demon Slayer Corps members who've come by lately..."
"Have all been exceptionally delicious..."
Masahiro laughed instead of getting angry. As a veteran of the Demon Slayer Corps, he knew that Demons couldn't be reasoned with or persuaded.
They were a completely different species from humans.
Sarutobi Hiruzen watched the scene coldly. He understood even better that Demons might look human, but since they could only survive by eating people, they had already ceased to be human in their way of thinking.
It wasn't merely a consequence of eating people. A creature's thoughts were complicated, yet easily influenced by its physiology.
Hormones made people feel excited, while dopamine gave them pleasure.
Different hormone levels in men and women led to differences in how they thought.
The difference between Demons and humans was even greater. They might not even produce the same hormones.
"Then I'll show you..."
"The Demon Slayer Corps swordsmen exist to kill scum like you!"
As he spoke, Masahiro raised his Nichirin Sword and charged at the Demon in the distance.
He didn't ask any of the other adults to step in. Masahiro wanted to test his current strength.
Though he hadn't learned any Ninjutsu yet, Chakra had already enhanced his physical abilities enough to bring him close to a Demon's level.
His blade flashed fiercely, whistling through the air as it struck at the Demon.
"Clang!"
Without even looking up, the Demon raised the great axe he'd been using to chop wood. Its inhuman strength coursed through the weapon,
and one blow sent Masahiro, still gripping his Nichirin Sword, staggering backward.
Masahiro's feet scraped against the mountainside as he clutched his Nichirin Sword in both hands, his arms trembling.
Before Masahiro could react to the Demon's strength, the Demon spoke first.
"I knew it..."
"You Demon Slayer Corps lot have learned some kind of power beyond ordinary human limits."
There was a hint of surprise in the Demon's voice.
He'd clearly noticed that the Demon Slayer Corps members who had come by lately were all exceptionally strong. They could even injure him.
"But surpassing ordinary humans won't help you."
"Because..."
"I'm not human!"
The Demon burst into a wild laugh and shot forward like the wind, launching his attack on Masahiro.
He swung his enormous axe without any particular technique, relying only on his superhuman speed and strength. The weapon left a flurry of afterimages and bursts of air in its wake.
Masahiro held his Nichirin Sword in both hands, barely managing to dodge the Demon's relentless assault. When he couldn't evade an attack, he blocked it with his sword, and his hands and feet went numb at once.
"You seem a lot weaker than the last one..."
"That swordsmanship of yours is pathetic."
The Demon taunted him without holding back.
The Demon's attacks were unstructured, but Masahiro's swordsmanship was near the bottom of the Demon Slayer Corps, too. It was better than nothing.
"Crash!"
A tree the Demon had chopped down came crashing to the ground, as if sounding the battle's final note.
Masahiro had only recently begun working with Chakra. He hadn't yet become proficient at using his physical abilities or controlling Chakra. Under the Demon's powerful blows, his Nichirin Sword was knocked from his hands.
"Die!"
With an exhilarated look on his face, the Demon swung his sharp axe. With Masahiro's Nichirin Sword no longer in the way, the blade cut straight through his neck.
The force, heavy as a thousand catties, had the effect of a guillotine. Masahiro's head flew through the air, his face still bearing the terror of being beheaded.
It all seemed to happen as naturally as could be. Yet Sarutobi Hiruzen and Tsugikuni Yoriichi, watching nearby, calmly observed their comrade being beheaded.
They seemed completely unfazed.
The Demon, lost in the thrill of killing, noticed nothing strange. He watched the head and body falling from the air with appreciation and excitement.
"Bang!"
Unexpectedly, rather than falling naturally, the head and body burst into a cloud of smoke.
"Huh?!"
As the Demon stared in disbelief, a Nichirin Sword pierced his heart, its blade sticking out through his back.
Masahiro appeared behind the Demon, Nichirin Sword in hand, his expression calm.
"Substitution Technique."
After days of bumping along in the carriage and training hard at the same time, Masahiro had finally learned his first Ninjutsu.
It was the most practical technique for combat among the Three Body Techniques, which Masahiro had chosen to study.
He had used it quite successfully in his first real battle against a Demon.
The Demon turned his head with a look of surprise and pain, doing so with great difficulty.
Then—
"Whoosh!"
The axe in the Demon's hand roared through the air once more, cutting off Masahiro's head again.
And the way the Demon had just turned around was quite literal—
His body had rotated a full one hundred and eighty degrees.
For a creature like a Demon, whose body was so different from a human's, even the spine could rotate freely.
"Sorcery?!"
Though the Demon continued swinging his axe, his expression was one of sheer horror.
Replacing a person with a piece of wood to take an attack couldn't be explained as a mere trick of the eye.
It was true sorcery, the stuff of legend.
It was even more astonishing than the existence of Demons like him.
"Bang!"
Another cloud of smoke dissipated, and Masahiro suddenly appeared behind the Demon. He had clearly used the Substitution Technique again to evade the attack.
"Die!"
Masahiro's Nichirin Sword remained embedded in the Demon's heart. The weapon in his hand now was a Kunai made from a Nichirin Sword.
He slashed the Kunai toward the Demon's neck. That was the only place where the Demon was truly vulnerable.
And striking the heart had also been one of Masahiro's tricks.
"Not bad..."
On the other side, Sarutobi Hiruzen nodded at the sight.
Though this was Masahiro's first battle as a Ninja, he hadn't done badly.
At the very least, he understood the core of Ninja combat: deception.
"But he's still had too little time to train..."
"The gap in raw strength is too great."
Masahiro, who had only just mastered Chakra, could handle ordinary Demons. But this Demon had clearly reached the level of an Upper Moon.
Not only was his physical strength greater than that of an ordinary Demon, he also had his own Blood Demon Art.
The next second, Masahiro's eyes widened. A sudden wave of weakness swept through his body, and the Kunai in his hand instantly lost the strength to cut.
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