When Gyutaro landed, he still held the blood-dripping scythe.
The demon blood on its blade was dark purple and thick. It dripped down, leaving a tiny mark on the blue stone paving.
He kept his head lowered, staring at Daki's limbless body on the ground, the muscles across his shoulders and back pulled taut.
Then he raised his eyes to Yaha.
"I'll take that face of yours, along with your life."
As those words fell, Shinobu Kocho took half a step back.
"Yaha," she said, her voice kept utterly level, "his scythes are poisoned. It's a concentrated Upper Rank poison. A Hashira who's poisoned will die within three minutes."
She paused, then spoke faster. "Do not let the blades so much as nick your skin."
Yaha didn't turn around.
He took his hands out of his pockets, flicked each one, and loosened his knuckles with a few crisp cracks.
Gyutaro moved.
Blood Demon Art: Flying Blood Scythe.
The instant they burst from his hands, over a dozen dark purple, scythe-shaped blades of air spread into a fan, closing in from the front, both sides, and above.
Every angle was lethal, sealing off every possible escape.
They were so fast that Shinobu Kocho's eyes could catch only a fleeting afterimage.
Yaha didn't move.
He stood where he was, tilted his head to glance at the outermost scythe blade's trajectory, then shifted his right foot half a step sideways, casually letting the sweeping blade pass.
The other scythes were already upon him.
He raised his left arm to meet them without even coating it in cursed energy.
"Don't!" Shinobu Kocho's voice came from behind him. "That poison-"
Shlck.
The blood scythe's blade cut into the front of his left arm.
It sank a short way into his flesh and stopped.
It was