He continued weaving through the flashes of blades, even beginning to counterattack as he yawned.
His elbows and knees knocked the deadly moon blades aside with precision, as though striking stubborn rocks, even guiding them into empty space or into one another.
Bang! Clang! Rip!
Every seemingly casual block or deflection sent an overwhelming force rebounding through Kokushibo, leaving his sword arm faintly numb.
It was as though his sword had struck an invisible wall of lamentation.
"Jealous of your younger brother, jealous of his talent, which even the sun favored?"
As Kirishima Bupai effortlessly neutralized attacks powerful enough to cleave mountains and shatter stone, he continued driving the sharp blade of his words into the most vulnerable depths of Kokushibo's soul.
"Was it really his strength you envied? No..."
A sharp gleam that seemed to see through everything flashed in his eyes. "What you envied was his freedom, never bound by those rotten rules."
"You envied the fact that, simply by being born human, he possessed a light that could illuminate the darkness and warm people's hearts!"
"But you, Tsugikuni Michikatsu, as the eldest son, were shackled from childhood by the heavy burdens of family honor and the warrior's code!"
"All your efforts, all the sweat you shed, all the pain you endured through gritted teeth, were merely to meet the prescribed standards that cold system had set for you!"
"When you discovered that the goal you had spent your whole life pursuing was as laughable as a firefly before the brilliant moon beside Yoriichi's innate radiance, your world, built upon 'order,' collapsed in an instant!"
Kokushibo's sword faltered abruptly. Like the sharpest blade, Kirishima Bupai's words pierced straight through the psychological defenses he had built over a century of life as a demon.
They laid bare, in all