"Yoriichi?"
Kirishima Bupai interrupted him, a trace of complicated resignation flashing in his eyes. "He never saw you as a rival, nor did he ever think of surpassing you..."
"He wielded his sword to protect what he wanted to protect. His light wasn't meant to illuminate your insignificance, but to drive away the darkness in this world."
"And you..." Kirishima Bupai's voice rose abruptly, his questioning thunderous. "What have you wielded your sword for all your life? To prove you were stronger than Yoriichi?"
"To climb to the top of Muzan's hierarchy? Or to fill that soul of yours, riddled with holes from the gnawing of jealousy and emptiness?"
"Everything you pursued, every obsession, was nothing but an illusion-a complete and utter act of self-deception!"
"Shut up... shut up..." Kokushibo's voice weakened. It was no longer an enraged roar, but carried a despair beyond all hope of recovery.
Kirishima Bupai's words were like a belated judgment, utterly destroying the foundation of the beliefs that had sustained him for a hundred years.
He found himself unable to refute them!
Every word struck like a sledgehammer against the tottering pillars of his mind.
"What's tragic isn't that your talent fell short of Yoriichi's," Kirishima Bupai said, his voice lowering yet growing even more penetrating. "What's tragic is that you never truly understood the meaning of strength, never found a path of your own."
"You're like a frog trapped in a cage, able to see only the moon's reflection, yet making that reflection the goal of your pursuit. How ridiculous. How pitiful!"
"What is the meaning of your existence? Merely to prove that Tsugikuni Michikatsu was inferior to Yoriichi Tsugikuni?" Kirishima Bupai slowly raised Yamato, its spectral blue edge gleaming with finality beneath the moonlight.
"A hundred years of losing your way, a