In the alley, time seemed to freeze.
Held fast by one Demon, Tanjiro could only watch as another Demon's claws reached for Kazumi, who had gone utterly still.
Those deathly pale claws grew impossibly large in Kazumi's eyes.
The shadow of death shrouded everything.
"No!"
Tanjiro let out a desperate roar.
He wanted to turn back and defend him, but there was no time.
It was over!
Someone he had to protect was going to die before his eyes again!
At that critical instant, Tanjiro's reason gave way to a more primal impulse.
With every ounce of strength he had, he let out an anguished cry toward the wooden box on his back.
"Nezuko!"
At the mouth of the alley, Sasuke's brow suddenly furrowed.
He remembered that name.
It was what the boy carrying the box called his younger sister.
What was he going to do?
As Sasuke watched, something incredible happened.
Bang!
A tremendous crash rang out.
The door of the huge wooden box on Tanjiro's back was kicked to pieces from within.
A small figure leaped out of the box.
It was a girl wearing a pink kimono.
She held a length of emerald-green bamboo between her teeth.
Veins bulged on her forehead, and her eyes were squeezed shut, as though she were enduring immense pain.
But there was no mistaking the powerful, ominous aura of a Demon emanating from her.
In that instant, Sasuke's gaze turned utterly cold.
A member of the Demon Slayer Corps, traveling with a Demon.
This was the vilest betrayal of the entire Demon Slayer Corps!
His right hand had already closed around the jet-black Wakizashi at his waist.
The Chakra within him began to surge.
If that female Demon made any move to harm a human, he would use Chidori to pierce both her and the boy carrying the box within a tenth of a second.
Yet what happened next stopped Sasuke's blade before he could draw it.
"Roar!"
The Swamp Demon attacking Kazumi was startled by this sudden development, but his attack did not stop. Instead, his claws slashed down even more savagely.
He would tear apart the human before him first!
Just then, the female Demon named Nezuko moved.
Her figure became a flash of pink lightning.
She was so fast that even Sasuke's Two-Tomoe Sharingan could barely catch an afterimage.
She did not charge at Tanjiro.
Nor did she charge at Sasuke.
Much less did she charge at Kazumi, who was closest to her and looked the most delicious.
Though she moved later, she reached her target first, delivering a kick.
It slammed viciously into the Swamp Demon's head.
Boom!
A deep, tremendous crash rang out.
As though struck by an invisible sledgehammer, the Swamp Demon's hard skull flew backward faster than he had lunged forward.
In midair, his head burst like a watermelon, turning into a cloud of black blood.
The tremendous force even sent him smashing through the alley wall, vanishing into the darkness on the other side.
One blow.
With just one blow, she had instantly killed a vicious Demon's duplicate that even Tanjiro had found difficult to handle.
A deathly silence fell over the alley.
Tanjiro was stunned.
Kazumi was stunned.
Even the other two Swamp Demons, the one facing Sasuke and the one holding Tanjiro back, faltered in their movements, seemingly unable to comprehend what had happened before them.
Killing her own kind?
But the most shocked of all was Sasuke.
His shock did not come from Nezuko's strength.
It came from what Nezuko did after kicking that Demon away.
She landed steadily in front of Kazumi.
Then she spread her arms, firmly shielding the human trembling in terror behind her.
She turned to face the two remaining Swamp Demons and took a guarded fighting stance.
Her tightly shut eyes slowly opened.
They were pink eyes without pupils.
Yet in those eyes, Sasuke's Sharingan saw something that did not belong to a Demon.
It was not hunger, not brutality, not a craving for flesh and blood.
It was anger.
A kind of anger that belonged to a "human," ignited by a threat to family and companions.
A Demon was protecting a human?
Sasuke's mind went blank.
This completely overturned everything he had understood about life for more than a decade.
It overturned the definition of Demons branded deep into his soul on the night his family had been destroyed.
Weren't all Demons cruel, bloodthirsty monsters that devoured humans?
Why...
Why would this one before him ruthlessly kill her own kind to protect a human she had never met?
Without realizing it, Sasuke loosened his grip on his blade.
His Sharingan remained fixed on Nezuko.
He saw that although the demonic aura around Nezuko was powerful, it was exceptionally pure, without a trace of the filth and resentment that came from devouring humans.
He saw her shielding a human behind her, her small back somehow conveying an inviolable resolve.
Unbidden, the words Master Kuwajima had once spoken to him flashed through Sasuke's mind.
"I hope you can become a keen blade that protects people, rather than merely a weapon for revenge."
Protect... people...
Sasuke looked at Nezuko before him, then at the boy carrying the box beside her, whose eyes were filled with trust despite his shock.
For the first time, a flicker of doubt stirred in his heart.
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