The voice beneath the flame mask sounded as though it had eight hundred loudspeakers behind it, blasting the last few birds out of the Butterfly Mansion's courtyard.
Hotaru Haganezuka. One of the finest swordsmiths in the Demon Slayer Corps' Swordsmith Village. His temper was even harder than the blades he honed. Now he stood beside the door he had kicked off its hinges, two kitchen knives raised overhead. His eyes were red beneath his mask, and tears ran down its edges, mingling with snot and dripping onto the front of his clothes.
"Three months! Three months of charcoal-fire tempering, six hundred rounds of folding and forging! I poured my life into that iron, and you-you senseless brute-what have you done to it?!"
He charged inside as he howled, waving his kitchen knives wildly and taking rapid, shuffling steps. Two Hidden Corps members guarding the corridor tried to stop him, but he elbowed them aside, sending them into the wall.
Yaha sat on the master bedroom's windowsill, one leg dangling outside the window. He held the teacup Shinobu Kocho had just brought him and was lifting it to his lips.
He heard the voice but did not even turn his head.
Hotaru Haganezuka had already reached the bedroom door. He kicked open the cedar door that had been replaced less than twelve hours earlier and stood in the doorway, pointing a kitchen knife at Yaha. His voice had cracked.
"Give me back the blade, you bastard who doesn't deserve to wield one! I'm taking it back to refor-"
Yaha set down his teacup.
He raised his left index finger and flicked it at the air.
As though flicking a speck of dust off his fingertip.
Hotaru Haganezuka's words caught in his throat. Something invisible struck him square in the chest. The