At some point, Akaza's assault began to weaken.
The pressure on Haruto and Kyojuro eased considerably. Kyojuro glanced at the swordsman behind him, puzzled.
The demon's eyes no longer held the contempt and amused interest they had shown when they first met, nor the fury that had followed the injection.
Now he seemed to be thinking about something, so distracted that he barely paid attention to the fight.
At the edge of the sky, a pale sliver was about to break over the horizon. Dawn was coming!
Once day broke, no matter how powerful this demon was, sunlight would grind him to dust!
Akaza looked up at the sun that was about to rise.
Strangely, he felt little stirring in his heart.
Whether it was his fear of the sun or his hatred for the two swordsmen before him, beneath the girl's gentle gaze...
Those feelings seemed to have lost their intensity.
Koyuki said... she wanted to see the fireworks.
Come to think of it, Akaza had not watched fireworks in hundreds of years. Although he was active at night, his chief thought about those fireworks rising into the night sky had always been-
This is how weak, boring humans waste their time.
Making wishes for the new year, or even your whole life, beneath the fireworks... what does that accomplish?
Once you encounter a demon, even the simplest wishes become as fragile as soap bubbles.
Just like...
He froze for a moment, unsure what he had remembered.
Death, burial-the poor want to live.
Those irritating fragments of memory darted through his head, occasionally flashing scenes from the past before him and aggravating him endlessly.
Damn swordsmen! Damn you, Takanashi! Daki should have swallowed you whole!
But back to the fireworks-Akaza had not watched fireworks in hundreds of years.
What