The blurred face of that woman still lingered in Akaza's golden eyes.
Her features were gentle. She seemed to be smiling, yet also crying. He wanted to hold on to that image, but the harder his consciousness strained, the faster it shattered.
When the fragments scattered, only pain remained.
Carbonized particles still flaked off the charred stump of his shoulder. Black smoke rose from the wound on his left forearm. The demon core in his chest beat fast and erratically, each pulse driving the soul-deep tearing sensation into his brain stem.
Akaza's left leg moved.
His remaining knee found purchase among the rubble. The muscle fibers in his thigh tightened, and the blue demon markings beneath his skin flickered twice.
He pushed himself up.
With one leg, a severed arm, and a body reduced to little more than a torso.
The man opposite him still stood three paces away. His hands were in his pockets, his crimson eyes half-lidded, as though he were watching a beetle unable to right itself.
A hoarse growl rolled out of Akaza's throat. Using his left leg as a spring, he hurled his entire torso forward.
He was fast.
So fast that, from a distance, Tanjiro saw only a blue afterimage spring out of the rubble.
Yaha did not dodge.
He did not even take his hands out of his pockets.
His right index finger lifted slightly beneath the fabric of his pocket.
No sound.
No light.
Two lines invisible to the naked eye swept through the air.
Akaza's left leg was divided into four pieces below the knee. His right leg was sliced into evenly sized chunks from the hip down.
Every cut surface was smooth as a mirror.
Carbonization began along all the cut edges at once. Dark gray particles trickled down like fine sand through an hourglass.
Akaza lost all support. His torso slammed into the mud, splashing muddy water over half his face.
All four limbs were gone.
Both arms had been burned to charcoal by Open, and both legs had been sliced into pieces by Dismantle. Lying in the mud, Akaza had only an intact torso and a head he could still turn.
The severed chunks of his legs lay scattered around him, like ingredients neatly arranged by a cook on a chopping board. Black smoke rose from every cut surface. Fresh flesh sprouted only to carbonize, then sprouted again. After several cycles, it fell utterly still.
Yaha glanced down at his right hand inside his pocket.
His index and middle fingers were still trembling slightly. The blood vessels beneath his fingertips pulsed rapidly, and dark red bruises spread from the bases of his fingers toward his wrist. Reverse Cursed Technique followed behind, repairing the damage, but its healing was beginning to fall behind the rate of breakdown.
He did the math.
If he opened his domain now, this body would probably last eight seconds. After that, his skeleton would shatter from within, and his cursed energy pathways would collapse completely. No matter how fast Reverse Cursed Technique worked, it could not patch hundreds of ruptures opening at once.
Not worth it.
Yaha pushed that calculation to the back of his mind, his expression unchanged. He stepped forward, his combat boots landing on the scattered chunks of flesh with wet, dull thuds.
Akaza lay crooked in the mud, trying to lift his upper body with his chin and chest. The demon core pounded wildly inside his chest, like a heart on the verge of exploding.
Yaha walked up to him and crouched.
He reached out with his left hand, drove all five fingers into Akaza's hair, and lifted his head out of the mud.
Their faces were close.
Crimson met gold.
Akaza's eyes were bloodshot. Mud and his own demon blood clung to the corners of his mouth, mingling into a nauseating deep purple.
"You're lucky I'm in a good mood today."
Yaha's voice was quiet and slow.
"I'll spare your miserable life."
The muscles in Akaza's cheeks twitched.
"Not because you're strong." Yaha tilted his head, his crimson eyes clear of any unnecessary emotion.
"Because you're not even worth killing."
Akaza's pupils contracted sharply.
Over hundreds of years, countless swordsmen had cut him. Hashira-level fighters had driven him into desperate situations. Nichirin Blades had severed his head. Those had all been battles, all things he sought.
There was no shame in losing. Still less in dying at the hands of someone strong.
But not worth killing cut deeper than any blade.
Yaha released his hair. Akaza's head struck the mud again, sending up a small ring of murky water.
Yaha raised his left hand and patted Akaza's face with his palm. Twice, neither gently nor hard, as though patting a disobedient dog.
"Crawl back and tell Muzan Kibutsuji."
Yaha stood, slipping both hands back into his pockets. His right ring finger spasmed again beneath the fabric. He pinned it down with his thumb, suppressing the stabbing pain.
"The trash he sent is too weak."
A distorted shriek squeezed out of Akaza's throat.
"His head is mine." Yaha lowered his head, his crimson eyes fixed on the torso that lay in the mud.
"Tell him to wash his neck and wait for me in the Infinity Castle."
A messenger.
Upper Rank Three. A top-tier fighter forged over hundreds of years, personally given blood by Muzan Kibutsuji. In this man's mouth, he had been reduced to a courier.
Akaza's entire body shook violently. His demon core's pulse climbed to its limit.
He opened his mouth, trying to speak. He wanted to roar, to curse, to pour out every last ounce of his centuries of martial pride.
Only indistinct, breathy sounds escaped his throat.
Yaha raised his foot and planted his boot on the back of Akaza's head. Not hard-just enough to press his face into the muddy water.
"Too noisy."
Mud flooded Akaza's nose and mouth. His body jerked twice in the muck, like a snake with its head pinned down.
The horizon brightened.
A faint streak of pale white seeped beneath the clouds in the east.
Yaha lifted his boot. Akaza jerked his head out of the muddy water, gasping for breath. In the morning light, his golden pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Sunlight.
An Upper Rank's body was tougher than a Lower Rank's, but that did not mean it could withstand direct sunlight. If he failed to reach the shadows before dawn, centuries of accumulated strength would all come to nothing.
Akaza crushed his back teeth.
His torso writhed across the mud. Without hands or feet, he could only brace his chin against the ground and contract and extend his chest and abdomen. Like a caterpillar whose skeleton had been crushed, he crawled toward the dense forest inch by inch.
Deep in his mind, that woman's blurred face flashed once more.
He could not say why. There was simply an emotion he had never felt in hundreds of years, pressing down upon his demon core.
He couldn't die yet.
Mud and gravel scraped across his chest, stripping away broad patches of skin and flesh. Demon blood seeped from the abrasions, leaving a dark red trail behind him.
Yaha stood where he was, watching that trail extend to the edge of the dense forest and finally disappear into the last patch of shadow.
He looked away.
The severed remnants of Akaza's legs lay scattered at his feet. As the morning light swept over them, the flesh, deprived of nourishment from the demon core, had already begun to shrivel and crack. In a few more minutes, it would turn to ash like the corpse of an ordinary demon.
Yaha crouched.
He took his right hand out of his pocket. The purple bruises on its back had spread to his wrist, and the capillaries beneath the skin had ruptured all over. Reverse Cursed Technique was still slowly repairing them, but Yaha gave it no time.
He pressed that battered right hand against the largest piece of severed flesh.
Cursed energy seeped from his palm. Its purpose was the opposite of Reverse Cursed Technique-not repair, but extraction.
Threads of cursed energy hooked the highly concentrated Muzan's blood within the severed limb and pulled it out from between the necrotic cells. Dark red liquid energy gathered, compressed, and solidified.
The chunk of flesh shriveled at a visible rate, finally becoming a thin, grayish-white shell that scattered in the morning breeze.
Yaha opened his palm.
A dark red cursed object lay in his hand. Shaped like a finger, its surface was covered in fine black patterns, and it gave off a blood stench so pungent it made one want to vomit.
The System Panel popped up.
[Highly concentrated essence extracted. Consuming it can substantially reshape the Flesh Vessel's upper limit.]
Yaha squeezed the cursed object. It was hard, like jade and bone, and so cold it burned.
He tucked it inside his clothes.
Footsteps sounded behind him. More than one person.
Combat boots struck scorched earth, and wooden sandals struck gravel, mingling with hurried breaths and heartbeats that would not settle.
Kyojuro Rengoku led the way.
His body was completely intact. His left side was smooth, his breathing even, and even the bloodstains on his clothes had dried. His golden eyes shone in the morning light like two small suns.
Tanjiro followed half a step behind. Inosuke supported Zenitsu, and all three looked decidedly unwell.
They crossed the two-hundred-meter-long scorched trench, passed scattered carbonized particles and mud baked hard, and finally stopped three meters from Yaha.
Yaha turned around.
His cursed markings had not fully faded. Black patterns spread from his neck across half his face, and the final trace of savage fury lingered in his crimson eyes.
Rengoku looked at him.
For three seconds.
Then Kyojuro Rengoku unfastened the Nichirin Blade at his waist.
With both hands, he held the blade horizontally before his chest, its hilt facing Yaha.
Then this Flame Hashira, renowned throughout the Demon Slayer Corps for his unyielding pride, drove one knee heavily into the scorched earth. He bowed his flame-bright head deeply, offering a gesture of reverence that no swordsman would make lightly in his lifetime.
Tanjiro's mouth fell open. Zenitsu nearly slipped out of Inosuke's grasp and onto the ground.
Everyone froze where they stood.
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