At that roar, the two got a clear look at the newcomer. It was none other than Inosuke Hashibira!
His trademark boar mask was mostly torn apart, revealing the wild, handsome face beneath, smeared with blood.
His bare torso was covered in wounds, but most striking of all, what he gripped in his hands were not his usual pair of serrated swords.
Instead, they were two broken blades glowing a dazzling scarlet, as though burning with the flames of hell!
That was the Bright Red Blade Kirishima Bupai had hurled with all his strength after carving the words "Boar's Head, save earrings" into it.
Because the blade was scorching hot, and he had still been stuck in his "why are there only eight pieces of chocolate" bugged state at the time...
He had used his two broken blades to hack at the Bright Red Blade with all his might, and, as luck would have it, those two blades had turned red too.
Now, like a beast in human form, Inosuke wielded his broken blades and charged ferociously at Kanao Tsuyuri, who was poised in midair to stab down with her poisoned blade, his momentum unstoppable.
The scarlet broken blades sliced through the air, hurtling toward the airborne Kanao Tsuyuri with savage force and the lingering power of their crimson glow.
The scorching gusts even made the air hiss in protest.
Kanao Tsuyuri's vacant pupils contracted slightly. Even she could not perfectly anticipate this utterly unconventional "boar rush."
She swallowed, her slender body displaying astonishing flexibility in midair.
She spun as lightly as a real butterfly, gently tapped her toes against the side of Inosuke's swinging broken blade, and used the force to drift backward, narrowly avoiding the savage charge.
Bam!
Inosuke crashed headfirst into the large tree where Kanao Tsuyuri had just stood, shaking loose a shower of leaves.
But he paid it no mind. Whirling around with his scarlet broken blades in both hands, he roared a challenge at Kanao Tsuyuri, who had just landed, like a maddened beast. "Raaagh! Come at me again! You're not getting Tanbachiro!"
Meanwhile, Tanjiro seized the chance to roll aside with Nezuko's box in his arms, panting hard in lingering fright.
Looking at Inosuke, covered in wounds yet still brimming with fighting spirit, and Kanao Tsuyuri opposite him, whose movements were as precise as a machine's, Tanjiro's heart sank.
Inosuke was badly wounded, sustained only by sheer savage strength.
And he himself was utterly exhausted. Against Kanao Tsuyuri, whose speed and skill far surpassed theirs, defeat was only a matter of time.
"Inosuke! Watch out!" Tanjiro shouted anxiously.
Kanao Tsuyuri seemed to ignore Inosuke's roar completely.
Her emotionless purple eyes instantly locked onto the wooden box in Tanjiro's arms.
In her eyes, eliminating demons was the only directive.
Her figure vanished again. The next instant, her poisoned sword tip silently thrust toward a gap in the box Tanjiro was protecting, moving too fast for him to dodge completely.
In his despair, Tanjiro could even smell the potent poison wafting from the sword tip, mingled with the sweet fragrance of wisteria...
At that critical instant!
"Raaagh! No sneak attacks!"
Roaring, Inosuke charged again like a raging bull, completely abandoning his own defense as his scarlet broken blade cleaved straight toward Kanao Tsuyuri's back.
Faced with this attack that would wound them both, Kanao Tsuyuri's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, and she had to interrupt her thrust at the wooden box.
She shifted half a step sideways like a phantom, bringing her slender Nichirin Blade around in a reverse-handed parry at an exceptionally tricky angle to meet Inosuke's broken blade.
Clang! Shrrk!
Sparks flew. Inosuke held an absolute advantage in strength, but Kanao Tsuyuri overwhelmed him in technique.
Her sword slid away along the force of his broken blade like a nimble snake, its edge instantly adding another bloody cut to Inosuke's already battered arm.
"Argh!" Inosuke grunted in pain, the agony throwing off his movement.
Kanao Tsuyuri seized that momentary opening, her target clear once more: the wooden box! Her blade flashed like lightning!
"Nezuko!"
Tanjiro's eyes stretched wide with fury. He knew he could not keep up with her speed. There was no way to dodge.
In his desperation, he cast all reason aside, leaving only the instinct to protect his sister.
He shoved the wooden box behind him to safety, then launched himself like a cannonball, sinking into a low, braced stance as veins bulged on his forehead.
Using every ounce of strength and what little willpower he had left, Tanjiro slammed his hard forehead, which had knocked countless demons unconscious, straight toward Kanao Tsuyuri's face.
"Headbutt!"
It was a desperate counterattack, carrying Tanjiro's reckless resolve.
Kanao Tsuyuri clearly had not expected her opponent to use such a... primitive, crude move.
Even her precise thought process seemed to stall for an instant.
Faced with that forehead bearing down on her with astonishing force and a rush of wind, she instinctively tried to dodge backward.
In that split second that would decide the outcome...
Inosuke, who had just recovered from the intense pain, saw Tanjiro unleash his finishing move while Kanao Tsuyuri was about to retreat and evade it.
His simple, brutish boar brain held only one thought: Don't let her dodge! Help that Tanbachiro kid hit her!
"You're not getting away!!!" Inosuke bellowed, his wounded arm unable to move in time.
In his urgency, he reached out with his other, still relatively intact hand and grabbed fiercely at Kanao Tsuyuri's back.
He aimed for Kanao Tsuyuri's shoulder or collar, intending to yank her back.
However...
Shrrk!
Because of his injuries and haste, Inosuke's hand landed with a fatal deviation.
He did not catch her collar. Instead, spreading all five fingers, he grabbed a precise fistful of the fabric on the back of Kanao Tsuyuri's uniform, near her shoulder blade.
Worse still, as he yanked hard, his footing faltered from his earlier collision and injuries, and he stumbled.
"Ah!"
Just as Kanao Tsuyuri was about to propel herself backward, Inosuke's sudden, powerful, and extremely awkward backward tug jerked her body, instantly throwing her off balance.
Her once-fluid, elegant retreat became a clumsy forward stumble into a fall.
With a rare trace of astonishment on her delicate, doll-like face, she pitched uncontrollably toward Tanjiro's forehead as it charged in like a raging bull.
Tanjiro's full-force headbutt had originally been aimed at Kanao Tsuyuri's nose or forehead.
But Kanao Tsuyuri's unexpected forward fall, combined with Inosuke's tugging, caused a disastrous shift in their relative heights and angles.
Tanjiro's vision blurred, and the hard collision of skulls he had expected never came.
Instead, something unusually soft and astonishingly springy pressed hard against his forehead.
The sensation was far too unfamiliar, far too... ill-timed!
All of Tanjiro's ferocious momentum, all his strength, vanished without a trace the instant that bewildering sensation of impact reached him.
The backlash of that tremendous force left even him momentarily dizzy.
He abruptly raised his head and saw Kanao Tsuyuri's face right before him, still largely expressionless, though her eyes were now slightly widened.
And his forehead was nestled squarely into a full, warm, soft curve-the girl's well-developed chest beneath her uniform.
"No... I didn't... listen, I..."
Tanjiro's cheeks, ears, neck, and even the scar on his forehead turned bright red in an instant.
Scorching blood rushed to his head. He felt as though his soul was about to escape through the top of it.
"S-s-s-sorry!!!"
As though burned by a branding iron, Tanjiro sprang backward so fast he nearly fell over.
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