"Aaaaaah-!"
The screams were shrill enough to pierce eardrums, and no longer came from a single voice.
Karaku (pleasure), Aizetsu (sorrow), and Urogi (joy), the three clones representing different emotions, felt Sekido's (anger) compulsory summons at the same moment.
It was not a request, but a devouring.
Tanjiro had just dodged a thrust from Aizetsu's spear when he saw an unseen force drag Aizetsu's body backward against his will.
The piercing sound waves Urogi emitted in midair cut off abruptly. With a strange cry, he too was dragged toward the ground by that force.
Even Karaku, still terrified after Sasuke's Amaterasu black flames had burned away his Gunbai, was not spared.
Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, the three figures converged on Sekido.
Sekido stood there with his ringed staff planted in the ground, his body becoming the center of a vortex.
"Become one. Everything we are-anger, sorrow, joy, pleasure... will all become sustenance for hatred!"
His voice grew layered and distorted.
The three figures plunged into his body. There was no bloody collision; instead, they rapidly merged like pigments flowing into water.
Sekido's body began to swell and contort violently.
His formerly lean frame grew tall and muscular, and his skin darkened. Lumps bulged from his back, eventually forming six round protrusions like taiko drums, each clearly inscribed with the character for "hatred."
His face changed as well.
It no longer held simple anger, but a younger, deeper loathing. It was as though everything in the world bore him malice, and he intended to repay that hatred a hundred, a thousand times over.
The strongest clone of Upper Rank Four, Hantengu.
Zohakuten.
Had arrived.
Boom-!
An indescribable pressure swept outward from him in every direction.
The air seemed to turn into thick syrup, making even breathing difficult.
Mitsuri