"Hmm..."
Kirishima Bupai nodded slightly and pinched the bridge of his nose, his proud gaze seeming to pierce through the barriers of space.
"The core lies in folding space, delivering slashes that ignore distance, so..."
Meeting everyone's gaze, he clearly uttered his title: "Void Hashira."
"Void Hashira... Kirishima Bupai," Kagaya Ubuyashiki repeated softly, his voice filled with sincere praise and approval.
"From this day forward, you are the Demon Slayer Corps' tenth Hashira-rank swordsman. May your blade carve a new dawn through this dark night."
Just then, a Kakushi member in a dark uniform and a face mask silently hurried in through a side door.
He respectfully handed a sealed dossier to Kagaya Ubuyashiki.
Ubuyashiki opened the dossier and quickly scanned it.
But as his eyes moved across the dossier, his gentle brow gradually furrowed, and his tone grew a little grave. "Suzuran Town near Tokyo Prefecture... some extremely strange incidents involving large groups have occurred there recently..."
"Large numbers of townspeople have become obsessed with a new religious organization called the Eternal Paradise Cult. Its followers look haggard, yet have fallen into a bizarre frenzy."
"They claim they need neither food nor drink and pray day and night. People keep mysteriously disappearing... the area affected is expanding rapidly."
At this point, he looked up at Kirishima Bupai with a measure of apology and trust. "The other Hashira have yet to finish their missions. This matter is urgent, so I'm sorry for the trouble, but I must ask you to go there personally, Void Hashira."
Kirishima Bupai reached out and took the dossier, his fingertips brushing over such words as "disappearances," "frenzy," "refusal to eat," and "bizarre rituals."
He knew what the Eternal Paradise Cult was. It was something the parents of Doma, Upper Rank Two, had created.
Simply because Doma had been born with rare, multicolored eyes, they had used that to rake in money, touting him as a divine child.
But Doma had no human emotions and simply could not understand why those followers acted as though they were in such torment every day...
So Doma had later voluntarily become a demon, specifically targeting young, beautiful women and even collecting their skulls. Thus, a scourge was born.
At that thought, Kirishima Bupai's gaze grew a little colder. "No problem!"
By the time he left the Demon Slayer Corps Headquarters, the sun had sunk below the horizon, and dusk had closed in.
A familiar cawing came from the sky.
His personal Kasugai Crow, a striking purple scarf wrapped around its neck, swooped down like an arrow loosed from a bow and landed steadily on Kirishima Bupai's shoulder.
"Kirishima Bupai! Lord Void Hashira! You're so fucking awesome!"
The Kasugai Crow flapped its wings excitedly and yelled at the top of its lungs, its voice especially loud on the deserted mountain road.
"Even more amazing than that Mist Hashira, Muichiro Tokito! Back then, that kid took two whole months to rise from joining the Corps to becoming a Hashira, and that was already the fastest record in a hundred years!"
"But you! Your first day! You became a Hashira on your very first day! No one's ever done that before, and anyone matching it in the future is unlikely! Caw, caw!"
Kirishima Bupai glanced expressionlessly at the noisy black creature on his shoulder. "Shut up. You're too loud."
The Kasugai Crow was not frightened in the slightest. Instead, it grew even more excited.
It brought its little head close to Kirishima Bupai's ear and lowered its voice a little, though there was a hint of warning in it. "But Lord Void Hashira, that place, Suzuran Town... it's seriously creepy!"
"The latest intelligence is bad! I hear those followers are like people possessed."
"They grab everyone they see to preach at them. Their eyes are empty and fanatical, and all they mutter about is ascending to paradise and enjoying eternal peace. They don't even recognize their own parents, wives, or children anymore!"
"The missing people... I hear that when their bodies were found, they were unbelievably shriveled, like all their blood had been sucked dry! You really must be careful, my lord!"
After a round of mutual flattery, the man and bird continued north.
The closer they came to Suzuran Town, the thicker and more oppressive the air seemed to become.
It was late spring, when everything should have been bursting with life, yet the fields on either side of the road lay barren.
Withered yellow weeds grew unchecked, and in the few barely cultivated plots, the crops were sparse and shriveled.
Several people dressed as farmers were sallow and emaciated, their clothes ragged. Instead of working, however, they knelt on the dry, cracked field ridges, frantically kowtowing toward the setting sun, which was about to disappear.
Their foreheads struck the earth with dull thuds, leaving dark red smears of blood.
Sickly devotion flickered in their clouded eyes, and their cracked lips moved as they chanted over and over:
"Paradise approaches... the Pure Land descends... cast off the flesh... attain eternal life..." They paid no heed to the dead seedlings at their feet.
At the town entrance, several crookedly planted white banners fluttered in the wind, painted in glaring scarlet with a distorted, indistinct image of an abstract deity.
Several followers in the same deathly white religious robes stood by the road like wandering souls.
Their cheeks were sunken, their eye sockets dark, and their lips cracked and peeling, yet they strained to force fanatical, rigid smiles onto their faces.
The moment someone passed, they swarmed over like flies scenting blood and shoved coarse slips of paper into the person's arms without allowing a word.
"Join the Eternal Paradise Cult, lost lamb!"
A middle-aged follower, so thin that his cheekbones protruded and a gust of wind seemed enough to knock him over, blocked Kirishima Bupai's path.
He extended a hand like a withered branch, trying to seize Kirishima Bupai's sleeve, an unsettling flame of fanaticism burning in his eyes.
"Only by believing in the great God of Paradise and casting aside this filthy flesh can you obtain eternal peace! Escape the sea of suffering! Enter the supreme Pure Land of Paradise!"
A strange odor hung in the air around him, mixing the sour, rotten smell of his long-unwashed body with an indescribably cloying fragrance.
Behind his sunglasses, Kirishima Bupai's gaze swept over the man's arms, shriveled like dry sticks, and his hollow cheeks. He spoke coldly. "How long has it been since you ate or drank anything?"
The follower reacted as though he had heard the most blasphemous words imaginable.
Offended anger appeared on his haggard face, only to be swallowed by even stronger fanaticism:
"The body's hunger and thirst are illusions! They are shackles preventing us from drawing closer to the divine!"
"Only spiritual abundance and devout offerings can cleanse us of worldly dust and let us behold the true god!"
At that, he suddenly spread his arms like a madman, as though embracing an invisible deity. "Look! I can already feel the divine light shining on me! My soul is growing lighter! Soon... soon I'll be able to..."
His words were interrupted by Kirishima Bupai moving around him. The follower merely froze for a moment before numbly turning toward his next possible target.
Kirishima Bupai's gaze swept over the haggard follower blocking his path, and he spoke coldly. "How long has it been since you ate or drank anything?"
The follower retorted fanatically, "The body's hunger and thirst are illusions... only spiritual abundance..."
Before he could finish, Kirishima Bupai had already walked past him with ease, as though stepping around a stone by the roadside.
Only the follower remained there, blankly turning toward his next target.
Just as he stepped onto the desolate street in the town center, a rush of frantic footsteps and tearful cries came from an alley beside him:
"Stop! Let go of me! I'm with the Demon Slayer Corps! You can't do this! Help-!"
A young swordsman wearing the standard Demon Slayer Corps uniform was struggling desperately.
Before you continue