This Is So Giyu

Late at night, on the path leading to Fish Scale Village, Hiruma held a pig trotter in one hand and a pork elbow in the other, eating until his mouth was dripping with grease. He was stuffed now, feeling like he could kill that scumbag boss with a single slash.

As he walked, Hiruma suddenly felt a bone-chilling coldness strike from behind. His body jolted, and he spun around to see a figure standing silently not far behind him.

Under the clear moonlight, he saw it plainly. It was a bizarre creature with a shark's head atop a human body.

Without question, it was a demon.

The Shark Demon was entirely white, though it was an oily white, as if it had been coated head to toe in white latex paint. Its eyes were tightly shut, and it did not move.

Even the killing intent from that brief moment earlier had vanished.

There was no sense of pressure, no threat whatsoever. This demon was genuinely weak.

That was Hiruma's assessment of the Shark Demon, but he still felt that something about its presence was strange.

The man and demon faced each other for several minutes. The demon kept its eyes shut and did not move an inch.

By then, Hiruma had finished gnawing on the pig trotter. He flung the bones at the Shark Demon as hidden weapons.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Powered by Hiruma's powerful throw, every bone tore through the air and shot out at astonishing speed, as fierce as bullets.

In the blink of an eye, the bones rained into the Shark Demon's body, piercing its tough hide and embedding deeply within it.

Strangely, not a single drop of blood flowed from it. It remained motionless like a statue.

An illusion?

Controlled?

Or a clone?

Several possibilities flashed through Hiruma's mind, but then the Shark Demon opened its eyes. They were nothing but whites, and words were carved into its left eye—

Lower One.

The instant he saw those words, Hiruma tossed aside the half-eaten pork elbow. Every cell in his body seemed to cheer with excitement.

A Lower Rank?

Was I going to become a Hashira on my very first mission?

At the same time, the Shark Demon moved. It vanished like lightning in the blink of an eye, leaving only streaks of white afterimages flickering along its path.

Hiruma vanished as well. Deep-blue fighting aura radiated from around him, and countless afterimages gathered around the Shark Demon, eventually taking the form of a coiling dragon.

The dragon's head hovered above the Shark Demon, a brilliant blue blade wind clenched in its jaws.

Way Breathing: Water Form: Coiling Dragon.

Hiruma hovered at the dragon's head, his sword gleaming coldly in his hand. With a powerful swing, a dazzling streak of sword light tore through the air and came crashing down like a pouring galaxy.

All of it happened within seconds.

The shark head flew away and burst beneath the night sky, but what sprayed down was not flesh and blood, but milky-white water.

Hiruma swiftly distanced himself from the demon's corpse. Just as he dodged several steps away, the body exploded, splashing milky-white blood across the ground.

Something was wrong. The feel was wrong. Its strength was wrong.

Hiruma did not know exactly how strong he was, but one of the Twelve Kizuki should not have been this weak.

No Blood Demon Art, no instinct to evade—just seemingly incredible speed and mindless charges.

This guy had to be some kind of clone. After fighting it, he confirmed his suspicion.

But that meant the demon behind Fish Scale Village was Lower Rank One.

That was pretty interesting!

Hiruma sheathed his sword. When he walked closer, the pool of blood vanished, as though nothing had happened.

"Sigh!"

"What a waste of anticipation—and half a pork elbow too. Damn it!"

Without lingering, he hurried to the coconut tree at the village entrance and looked up. One Kasugai Crow had become two.

"Saber, this is..." Once Hiruma saw clearly, he cried out, "Holy shit, Kansaburo!"

Kansaburo was Giyu Tomioka's Kasugai Crow. He was old, an elder among the Kasugai Crows, and highly respected.

His presence here meant Giyu was here as well.

"Hello!" Kansaburo greeted Hiruma in the voice of a steady, weathered old man.

"Hello!" Hiruma folded his arms and looked around, but he could not find where Giyu was hiding.

That should not have been possible!

Giyu was not the kind of person who liked playing pranks on others.

"Where's Giyu?" he asked Kansaburo.

"Giyu was knocked unconscious by the villagers and locked up!" Kansaburo said unhurriedly. From his tone, Hiruma could tell that Giyu was not in danger for the moment.

"Uh..." Kansaburo's words left Hiruma utterly baffled. Why the hell had the villagers locked him up?

Kansaburo then roughly explained what had happened.

Giyu had arrived in Fish Scale Village a day earlier. Beside the shrine used for village rituals, he had discovered a fish-headed, human-bodied demon. When he killed it, he had also casually destroyed the shrine.

Giyu's reasoning was simple: the shrine enshrined a fish-headed, human-bodied monster identical to the demon he had killed.

But he knew it was a demon; the villagers did not. In their eyes, he was simply an outsider who had destroyed their shrine.

Although Giyu had tried to reason with them, how could the villagers have believed him? And since he would never lay a hand on ordinary people, he was knocked unconscious with a blow from behind amid the chaos.

"Uh... (ˉ―ˉ?)" Hiruma was speechless for a moment. If you can't talk them around, can't you just leave? Did you really have to reason with them?

This was so Giyu. He knew he was right and that he was doing it for the villagers' sake, but he simply could not express himself.

Hiruma could fully picture the scene: after Giyu shattered the shrine with his sword, he wore an expressionless face that said, "You owe me a hundred million," and told the villagers:

"This thing is bad for you. It's a demon, not a god."

"Forget it. Tell me where Giyu is being held, and I'll go rescue him."

Kansaburo froze for a moment, then put on an expression of intense thought. It was clear he was trying to remember, and trying very hard at that.

It could not be helped. Kansaburo was old, and his memory was not very good. That was understandable.

A moment later, Kansaburo's crow body shuddered, and he declared loudly, "Sorry, I forgot!"

Hearing that, Hiruma turned to stone on the spot.

Saber, standing nearby, could not bear to watch any longer and added, "That little girl might know where Giyu is being held."

"Blade Girl, how do you know?"

"Senior Kansaburo told me."

Kansaburo shook his head and said apologetically, "I forgot."

Hiruma was deeply frustrated. Kansaburo's memory was truly something else. Still, it was thanks to that poor memory that, according to the story, when Muzan attacked Tanjiro's family, Tanjiro would not have had to build an extra grave for a stranger.

"Where does that girl live? Take me there!"

"Okay!"

Saber nodded and spread his wings into the sky, while Kansaburo stood on Hiruma's shoulder to catch a free ride.

Under cover of night, Hiruma slipped into Fish Scale Village. Sure enough, he saw quite a few destroyed shrines along the way.

"Holy crap!"

"Did Giyu come here to do demolition work? He destroyed twenty-five shrines?"

Hiruma counted them and let out a long sigh, feeling that there was a reason Giyu had been knocked out from behind.

This was so Giyu.