The Flame Hashira bowed his head-who gave you permission to die?

Kyojuro Rengoku's knee slammed into the scorched earth.

It landed with a dull thud.

His head was bowed low. His long golden hair spilled over his shoulders, its ends caked with dirt, ash, and dried blood.

He held his Nichirin Blade horizontally before his chest with both hands, its hilt facing Yaha. Tiny chips from the earlier battle still marred its edge.

"I lost."

Rengoku's voice rang strong and steady, without a trace of weakness.

"In strength and the ability to protect others, you far surpass me."

His back remained perfectly straight. There was nothing servile about his kneeling posture; instead, it carried an almost obsessive candor.

"Thank you for saving me, and for saving those two hundred passengers."

Tanjiro stood with his mouth open, his sword hand hanging at his side.

Inosuke held Zenitsu firmly upright, his lips pressed tight beneath his boar mask. For once, he said nothing.

A deathly silence surrounded them.

Morning light spilled beneath the clouds in the east, gilding the charred trench and the carbonized debris scattered across the ground in pale gold.

Yaha stood before Rengoku.

The black cursed markings on his face rapidly faded. They receded downward from the corners of his eyes, and the scarlet drained from his irises, restoring his usual sleepy, dead-fish stare.

He looked down at the bowed Rengoku.

For two seconds.

"Tch."

Yaha frowned. "What are you doing?"

Rengoku did not raise his head. He continued holding out his blade.

Yaha lifted his right leg.

The instep of his military boot kicked the back of Rengoku's knee, neither gently nor hard.

Rengoku instantly lost his balance on his supporting knee. He pitched forward, stumbling and nearly falling flat. He hurriedly braced his scabbard against the ground to steady himself, then looked up at Yaha in complete bewilderment.

"Don't make me fucking sick."

Yaha shoved both hands back into his pockets, undisguised disgust filling his dead-fish eyes.

"Who said I was protecting you? I just didn't want the bad luck of having you die here."

Rengoku froze.

Yaha stepped forward, blocking the first ray of sunlight sweeping in from the east. His shadow fell over Rengoku, covering his dirt-streaked face.

"Listen up, you stupid owl."

Yaha's tone could not have been nastier.

"I have no interest in being some savior. But until you're strong enough to kill an Upper Rank with one slash, you'd better stay alive."

He half narrowed his eyes, his fingers tightening slightly inside his pockets.

"Staying alive is an order, not a request. Got it?"

Silence hung in the air for several seconds.

Rengoku looked at Yaha's cold face. A light fiercer than before rapidly gathered in his golden eyes.

He suddenly burst out laughing.

The laughter erupted from deep in his chest, making the pebbles by his feet tremble faintly.

Rengoku returned his Nichirin Blade to his waist and secured its clasp. He wiped the dirt from his face in one sweep and rose briskly to his feet.

His back was even straighter than when he had knelt.

"One day, I'll become strong enough that you won't need to worry about me!"

Rengoku's booming voice echoed, an undying flame burning in his eyes. "Sir Yaha!"

Yaha rolled his eyes.

In the distance, Tanjiro finally loosened his grip on his sword hilt.

His eyes grew hot. His gaze crossed the scorched earth and settled on Yaha's impatient profile.

Memories of Mount Natagumo resurfaced. Back then, Yaha had coldly warned him in the forest: foolish kindness would get him killed.

Now he finally understood.

This man had just dragged the Flame Hashira back from death's door, yet he cursed him in the nastiest tone, claiming he "didn't want the bad luck," and would not even let anyone thank him.

This was that monster's own deeply awkward tenderness.

The sun rose fully.

Support personnel from the Hidden Corps hurried over from the distant edge of the forest. Their gray uniforms formed a line in the morning light as they carried stretchers and first-aid kits.

Yaha glanced at the approaching figures.

He yawned, turned, and walked away from the sunlight. His steps were unhurried, his hands still buried in his pockets.

Rengoku watched him leave, the smile still lingering on his lips.

Tanjiro watched in silence, too.

That retreating figure crossed the two-hundred-meter charred trench, stepped over the carbonized debris strewn across the ground, and finally entered the shadows at the forest's edge, swallowed completely by the broken light filtering through the canopy.

No one called for him to stay.

Infinity Castle.

A heap of ruined flesh had appeared on the great hall's purple tiles.

All that remained was a torso and a head. Every limb was missing, and the stumps at the shoulders and hips had burned into black charcoal, constantly shedding carbonized flakes.

Demon blood seeped from the wounds, tracing a thin, dark red line across the tiles.

The notes of Nakime's biwa echoed through the empty hall.

Muzan sat in the shadows atop the dais, his features indistinct.

Akaza pressed his chin against the cold tiles and barely managed to lift his head. His golden eyes had gone utterly dull.

His lips moved, his voice hoarse and broken.

"He said... he's already claimed your head."

Akaza paused. Mud mingled with demon blood at the corner of his mouth and trickled down his chin.

"He told you to wash your neck and wait for him in Infinity Castle."

A deathly silence fell over the hall.

Muzan's face began to contort.

The muscle fibers beneath his skin swelled and stretched uncontrollably. The savage power inside him warped his once-refined human features beyond recognition, thrusting his cheekbones upward and tearing his eye sockets apart.

His fingertips dug hard into the stone armrest.

With a series of faint cracking sounds, a web of fractures burst across its surface, sending stone chips pattering down.

All of Infinity Castle began to shake violently.

Great clouds of dust fell from the purple ceiling, and the massive bone pillars supporting the space let out dull groans.

In a corridor deep within Infinity Castle, several lesser demons were instantly crushed to pulp by the terrible pressure of the walls suddenly closing in.

Muzan said nothing.

In his mind, the plan to hunt Yaha down had already been completely scrapped, reassembled, and escalated.

Deep in the forest.

Only after confirming that no presence was following him did Yaha finally pull his right hand out of his pocket.

His entire hand trembled uncontrollably.

Large portions of all five fingers had turned a lifeless blue-purple. The capillaries beneath his skin had ruptured inch by inch, and dark red bruises spread from the bases of his fingers to his wrist.

His knee struck the trunk of an old pine hard.

His left hand clawed into the rough bark. He could no longer suppress the metallic sweetness surging up his throat.

A mouthful of dark red blood burst out, splashing onto the moss around the roots and giving off scorching white vapor.

Reverse Cursed Technique was still working furiously.

But its healing could no longer keep pace with the breakdown of his body.

The System Panel flashed wildly across his retinas, blood-red warnings filling half his field of vision.

[Warning. Multiple ruptures detected in the Flesh Vessel. Reverse Cursed Technique overloaded.]

[Host must consume the "Origin Finger" within 24 hours to reconstruct the body, or risk genetic collapse.]

Yaha carelessly wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.

He reached inside his clothes and pulled out the dark red cursed object.

It was as thick as a finger, its surface covered in intricate black cursed markings, and it reeked of blood so intensely it was nauseating.

Yaha rubbed the pad of his finger over its cold, hard surface.

"Heh. I was hungry anyway."

Without the slightest hesitation, he tossed the cursed object into his mouth and bit down.

The instant his teeth sank into it, a savage, metallic-sweet liquid energy exploded in his mouth.

Muzan's origin, ten times denser than that of a Lower Rank, poured brutally down his esophagus into his stomach, then penetrated the stomach wall and forced its way into his bloodstream.

An intense blood-red color instantly swallowed Yaha's eyes.

His pupils and irises vanished, leaving only two pure scarlet orbs radiating brutality within his eye sockets.

The cursed energy channels inside his body were forcibly widened at that moment.

That tyrannical power violently expanded and reshaped his failing blood vessels from within. Deep beneath his muscles, his bones grated with a sound that set teeth on edge.

Yaha's back slammed against the tree trunk.

His spine arched upward involuntarily, and the muscles of his back writhed violently beneath his clothes.

Two dark red, bloody streaks slowly tore open beneath his shoulder blades.

No blood flowed, and his skin remained unbroken. But deep within those two marks, a structure that had long been sealed away finally began to bud, nourished by this highly concentrated origin.

Yaha slowly lowered his head.

His blood-red eyes fixed on the broken, dead leaves beneath his feet. His jaw muscles still worked hard, grinding down and swallowing the last remnants of the cursed object.

Deep in his mind, the blood-red warnings gradually faded.

A line of brilliant golden text appeared.

[Flesh Vessel reconstruction in progress. Completion: 12%.]

[Awakening of "King of Curses" physical traits detected. Four-arm rudiments formed.]

Leaning against the trunk, Yaha tilted his head back.

His scarlet eyes looked through the gaps in the canopy toward the gradually brightening morning sky.

The corners of his mouth slowly pulled into a savage curve.

It was a chilling smile that belonged to a true monster.